ON THE FEASIBILITY OF CHARACTERIZING FREE-FLOATING PLANETS WITH CURRENT AND FUTURE SPACE-BASED MICROLENSING SURVEYS

Abstract

ABSTRACT Simultaneous space- and ground-based microlensing surveys, such as K2's Campaign 9 (K2C9) and WFIRST, facilitate measuring the masses and distances of free-floating planet (FFP) candidates, which are identified as single-lens events with timescales that are of the order of 1 day. Measuring the mass and distance of an FFP lens requires determining the size of the source star ρ, measuring the microlens parallax , and using high-resolution imaging to search for the lens flux from a possible host star. Here we investigate the accessible parameter space for each of these components considering different satellites for a range of FFP masses, Galactic distances, and source star properties. We find that at the beginning of K2C9, when its projected separation from the Earth is ≲0.2 au, it will be able to measure for Jupiter-mass FFP candidates at distances larger than ∼2 kpc and to Earth-mass lenses at ∼8 kpc. At the end of K2C9, when = 0.81 au, it is sensitive to planetary-mass lenses for distances ≳3.5 kpc, and even then only to those with mass ≳M Jup. From lens flux constraints we find that it will be possible to exclude hosts down to the deuterium-burning limit for events within ∼2 kpc. This indicates that the ability to characterize FFPs detected during K2C9 is optimized for events occurring toward the beginning of the campaign. WFIRST, on the other hand, will be able to detect and characterize FFP masses down to or below super-Earths throughout the Galaxy during its entire microlensing survey.