Abstract
Abstract We show that dense OGLE and KMTNet I-band survey data require four bodies (sources plus lenses) to explain the microlensing light curve of OGLE-2015-BLG-1459. However, these can equally well consist of three lenses and one source (3L1S), two lenses and two sources (2L2S), or one lens and three sources (1L3S). In the 3L1S and 2L2S interpretations, the host is a brown dwarf and the dominant companion is a Neptune-class planet, with the third body (in the 3L1S case) being a Mars-class object that could have been a moon of the planet. In the 1L3S solution, the light curve anomalies are explained by a tight (five stellar radii) low-luminosity binary source that is offset from the principal source of the event by . These degeneracies are resolved in favor of the 1L3S solution by color effects derived from comparison to MOA data, which are taken in a slightly different (R/I) passband. To enable current and future (WFIRST) surveys to routinely characterize exo-moons and distinguish among such exotic systems requires an observing strategy that includes both a cadence faster than 9 minute−1 and observations in a second band on a similar timescale.
Highlights
The eight planets of the solar system harbor an amazing diversity of moons
If the lens consists of two bodies, in the limit that the separation between them is s ? 1, the light curve can appear as two isolated “bumps.” In this case, the requirement for detecting the second bump is that the source passes within roughly qE,p = q qE of the planet, where q is the planet– star mass ratio, e.g., Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)-2016-BLG-0263 (Han et al 2017)
Because we have asked a very simple, one parameter question of the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA) data, we consider it reasonable that the above p-values should be taken at face value
Summary
The eight planets of the solar system harbor an amazing diversity of moons. Two planets have no moons, while Jupiter has four major moons that Johannes Kepler already realized constitute a mini-solar system obeying his Third Law. 1, the light curve can appear as two isolated “bumps.” In this case, the requirement for detecting the second bump (and second body) is that the source passes within roughly qE,p = q qE of the planet, where q is the planet– star mass ratio, e.g., OGLE-2016-BLG-0263 (Han et al 2017). This mildly favors high-mass planets, but because there are more low-mass than high-mass planets, microlensing planet detections are almost uniform in log q (Mróz et al 2017). We discuss the wider implications of this event for the practical study of exo-moons with microlensing
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