Free-floating Planets Research Articles

A Fast Approximate Approach to Microlensing Survey Analysis

Abstract Microlensing can be used to discover exoplanets of a wide range of masses with orbits beyond ∼1 au, and even free-floating planets. The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission will use microlensing to discover approximately 1600 planets by monitoring ∼100 million stars to find ∼50,000 microlensing events. Modeling each microlensing event, especially the ones involving two or more lenses, is typically complicated and time consuming, and analyzing thousands of WFIRST microlensing events is possibly infeasible using current methods. Here, we present an algorithm that is able to rapidly evaluate thousands of simulated WFIRST binary-lens microlensing light curves, returning an estimate for the physical parameters of the lens systems. We find that this algorithm can recover projected separations between the planet and the star very well for low-mass-ratio events, and can also estimate mass ratios within an order of magnitude for events with wide and close caustic topologies.

Active Galactic Nuclei: Boon or Bane for Biota?

Abstract Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) emit substantial fluxes of high-energy electromagnetic radiation, and have therefore attracted some recent attention for their negative impact on galactic habitability. In this paper, we propose that AGNs may also engender the following beneficial effects: (i) prebiotic synthesis of biomolecular building blocks mediated by ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and (ii) powering photosynthesis on certain free-floating planets and moons. We also reassess the harmful biological impact of UV radiation originating from AGNs, and find that their significance could have been overestimated. Our calculations suggest that neither the positive nor negative ramifications stemming from a hypothetical AGN in the Milky Way are likely to affect putative biospheres in most of our Galaxy. On the other hand, we find that a sizable fraction of all planetary systems in galaxies with either disproportionately massive black holes (∼109–10 M ⊙) or high stellar densities (e.g., compact dwarf galaxies) might be susceptible to both the beneficial and detrimental consequences of AGNs, with the former potentially encompassing a greater spatial extent than the latter.

Constraints on Earth-mass primordial black holes from OGLE 5-year microlensing events

We constrain the abundance of primordial black holes (PBH) using 2622 microlensing events obtained from 5-years observations of stars in the Galactic bulge by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The majority of microlensing events display a single or at least continuous population that has a peak around the light curve timescale $t_{\rm E}\simeq 20~{\rm days}$ and a wide distribution over the range $t_{\rm E}\simeq [1, 300]~{\rm days}$, while the data also indicates a second population of 6 ultrashort-timescale events in $t_{\rm E}\simeq [0.1,0.3]~{\rm days}$, which are advocated to be due to free-floating planets. We confirm that the main population of OGLE events can be well modeled by microlensing due to brown dwarfs, main sequence stars and stellar remnants (white dwarfs and neutron stars) in the standard Galactic bulge and disk models for their spatial and velocity distributions. Using the dark matter (DM) model for the Milky Way (MW) halo relative to the Galactic bulge/disk models, we obtain the tightest upper bound on the PBH abundance in the mass range $M_{\rm PBH}\simeq[10^{-6},10^{-3}]M_\odot$ (Earth-Jupiter mass range), if we employ null hypothesis that the OGLE data does not contain any PBH microlensing event. More interestingly, we also show that Earth-mass PBHs can well reproduce the 6 ultrashort-timescale events, without the need of free-floating planets, if the mass fraction of PBH to DM is at a per cent level, which is consistent with other constraints such as the microlensing search for Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the longer timescale OGLE events. Our result gives a hint of PBH existence, and can be confirmed or falsified by microlensing search for stars in M31, because M31 is towards the MW halo direction and should therefore contain a much less number of free-floating planets, even if exist, than the direction to the MW center.

Survivability of planetary systems in young and dense star clusters

Aims.We perform a simulation using the Astrophysical Multipurpose Software Environment of the Orion Trapezium star cluster in which the evolution of the stars and the dynamics of planetary systems are taken into account.Methods.The initial conditions from earlier simulations were selected in which the size and mass distributions of the observed circumstellar disks in this cluster are satisfactorily reproduced. Four, five, or size planets per star were introduced in orbit around the 500 solar-like stars with a maximum orbital separation of 400 au.Results.Our study focuses on the production of free-floating planets. A total of 357 become unbound from a total of 2522 planets in the initial conditions of the simulation. Of these, 281 leave the cluster within the crossing timescale of the star cluster; the others remain bound to the cluster as free-floating intra-cluster planets. Five of these free-floating intra-cluster planets are captured at a later time by another star.Conclusions.The two main mechanisms by which planets are lost from their host star, ejection upon a strong encounter with another star or internal planetary scattering, drive the evaporation independent of planet mass of orbital separation at birth. The effect of small perturbations due to slow changes in the cluster potential are important for the evolution of planetary systems. In addition, the probability of a star to lose a planet is independent of the planet mass and independent of its initial orbital separation. As a consequence, the mass distribution of free-floating planets is indistinguishable from the mass distribution of planets bound to their host star.

Survival rates of planets in open clusters: the Pleiades, Hyades, and Praesepe clusters

Context. In clustered environments, stellar encounters can liberate planets from their host stars via close encounters. Although the detection probability of planets suggests that the planet population in open clusters resembles that in the field, only a few dozen planet-hosting stars have been discovered in open clusters. Aims. We explore the survival rates of planets against stellar encounters in open clusters similar to the Pleiades, Hyades, and Praesepe and embedded clusters. Methods. We performed a series of N-body simulations of high-density and low-density open clusters, open clusters that grow via mergers of subclusters, and embedded clusters. We semi-analytically calculated the survival rate of planets in star clusters up to ~1 Gyr using relative velocities, masses, and impact parameters of intruding stars. Results. Less than 1.5% of close-in planets within 1 AU and at most 7% of planets with 1–10 AU are ejected by stellar encounters in clustered environments after the dynamical evolution of star clusters. If a planet population from 0.01–100 AU in an open cluster initially follows the probability distribution function of exoplanets with semi-major axis (ap) between 0.03 and 3 AU in the field discovered by RV surveys (∝ ap−0.6), the PDF of surviving planets beyond ~10 AU in open clusters can be slightly modified to ∝ ap−0.76. The production rate of free-floating planets (FFPs) per star is 0.0096–0.18, where we have assumed that all the stars initially have one giant planet with a mass of 1–13 MJup in a circular orbit. The expected frequency of FFPs is compatible with the upper limit on that of FFPs indicated by recent microlensing surveys. Our survival rates of planets in open clusters suggest that planets within 10 AU around FGKM-type stars are rich in relatively-young (≲10–100 Myr for open clusters and ~1–10 Myr for embedded clusters), less massive open clusters, which are promising targets for planet searches.

Indian English in theory and action

AbstractThis tribute to the work of Braj B. Kachru covers three themes. First, I present an overview of Kachru's career and contribution to the field of world Englishes (WE) and language contact. In the second and main section I present an overview of Indian English – Language and culture, a booklet in the Lonely Planet language products series from 1968 (Lonely Planet, 2008). I argue that this popular piece of work is a fitting – if unwitting – tribute to Kachru's work in bringing to life the features of Indian English and related varieties for practical (and even commercial), rather than academic purposes. In the final section I reflect briefly on newer models in WE studies in relation to Kachru's oeuvre.

Spitzer Microlensing Parallax for OGLE-2017-BLG-0896 Reveals a Counter-rotating Low-mass Brown Dwarf

Abstract The kinematics of isolated brown dwarfs in the Galaxy, beyond the solar neighborhood, is virtually unknown. Microlensing has the potential to probe this hidden population, as it can measure both the mass and five of the six phase-space coordinates (all except the radial velocity) even of a dark isolated lens. However, the measurements of both the microlens-parallax and finite-source effects are needed in order to recover the full information. Here, we combine the Spitzer satellite parallax measurement with the ground-based light curve, which exhibits strong finite-source effects, of event OGLE-2017-BLG-0896. We find two degenerate solutions for the lens (due to the known satellite-parallax degeneracy), which are consistent with each other except for their proper motion. The lens is an isolated brown dwarf with a mass of either 18 ± 1 M J or 20 ± 1 M J . This is the lowest isolated-object mass measurement to date, only ∼45% more massive than the theoretical deuterium-fusion boundary at solar metallicity, which is the common definition of a free-floating planet. The brown dwarf is located at either 3.9 ± 0.1 kpc or 4.1 ± 0.1 kpc toward the Galactic bulge, but with proper motion in the opposite direction of disk stars, with one solution suggesting it is moving within the Galactic plane. While it is possibly a halo brown dwarf, it might also represent a different, unknown population.

Two new free-floating or wide-orbit planets from microlensing

Planet formation theories predict the existence of free-floating planets that have been ejected from their parent systems. Although they emit little or no light, they can be detected during gravitational microlensing events. Microlensing events caused by rogue planets are characterized by very short timescales tE (typically below two days) and small angular Einstein radii θE (up to several μas). Here we present the discovery and characterization of two ultra-short microlensing events identified in data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, which may have been caused by free-floating or wide-orbit planets. OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 is one of the shortest events discovered thus far (tE = 0.155 ± 0.005 d, θE = 2.37 ± 0.10μas) and was caused by an Earth-mass object in the Galactic disk or a Neptune-mass planet in the Galactic bulge. OGLE-2017-BLG-0560 (tE = 0.905 ± 0.005 d, θE = 38.7 ± 1.6μas) was caused by a Jupiter-mass planet in the Galactic disk or a brown dwarf in the bulge. We rule out stellar companions up to a distance of 6.0 and 3.9 au, respectively. We suggest that the lensing objects, whether located on very wide orbits or free-floating, may originate from the same physical mechanism. Although the sample of ultrashort microlensing events is small, these detections are consistent with low-mass wide-orbit or unbound planets being more common than stars in the Milky Way.

Origin of 1I/’Oumuamua. II. An Ejected Exo-Oort Cloud Object?

Abstract 1I/’Oumuamua is the first detected interstellar interloper. We test the hypothesis that it is representative of a background population of exo-Oort cloud objects ejected under the effect of post-main sequence mass loss and stellar encounters. We do this by comparing the cumulative number density of interstellar objects inferred from the detection of 1I/’Oumuamua to that expected from these two clearing processes. We consider the 0.08–8 M ⊙ mass range, take into account the dependencies with stellar mass, Galactocentric distance, and evolutionary state, and consider a wide range of size distributions for the ejected objects. Our conclusion is that 1I/’Oumuamua is likely not representative of this background population, even though there are large uncertainties in the masses and size distributions of the exo-Oort Clouds. We discuss whether the number density of free-floating, planetary-mass objects derived from gravitational microlensing surveys could be used as a discriminating measurement regarding 1I/’Oumuamua’s origin (given their potential common origin). We conclude that this is challenged by the mass limitation of the surveys and the resulting uncertainty of the mass distribution of the free floaters. The detection of interlopers may be one of the few observational constraints of the small end of this population, with the caveat that, as we conclude here and in Moro-Martín (2018), in the case of 1I/’Oumuamua, it might not be appropriate to assume this object is representative of an isotropic background population, which makes the derivation of a number density very challenging.

Гибридная модель для эффективного обнаружения аномалий в кратковременных последовательностях кривых блеска GWAC и аналогичных наборах данных

Early warning during sky survey provides a crucial opportunity to detect low-mass, free-floating planets. In particular, to search short-timescale microlensing (ML) events from high-cadence and wide- field survey in real time, a hybrid method which combines ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) with LSTM (Long-Short Time Memory) and GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit) recurrent neural networks (RNN) is presented to monitor all observed light curves and identify ML events at their early stages. Experimental results show that the hybrid models perform better in accuracy and less time consuming of adjusting parameters. ARIMA+LSTM and ARIMA+GRU can achieve improvement in accuracy by 14.5% and 13.2%, respectively. In the case of abnormal detection of light curves, GRU can achieve almost the same result as LSTM with less time by 8%. Same models are also applied to MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Databases ECG dataset with similar abnormal pattern and we yield from both sets that we can reduce up to 40% of time consuming for researchers to adjust the model to 90% accuracy.

Гибридная модель для эффективного обнаружения аномалий в кратковременных последовательностях кривых блеска GWAC и аналогичных наборах данных

Early warning during sky survey provides a crucial opportunity to detect low-mass, free-floating planets. In particular, to search short-timescale microlensing (ML) events from high-cadence and wide- field survey in real time, a hybrid method which combines ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) with LSTM (Long-Short Time Memory) and GRU (Gated Recurrent Unit) recurrent neural networks (RNN) is presented to monitor all observed light curves and identify ML events at their early stages. Experimental results show that the hybrid models perform better in accuracy and less time consuming of adjusting parameters. ARIMA+LSTM and ARIMA+GRU can achieve improvement in accuracy by 14.5% and 13.2%, respectively. In the case of abnormal detection of light curves, GRU can achieve almost the same result as LSTM with less time by 8%. Same models are also applied to MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Databases ECG dataset with similar abnormal pattern and we yield from both sets that we can reduce up to 40% of time consuming for researchers to adjust the model to 90% accuracy.

The ordinary – extraordinary dialectics in tourist metropolises

The ordinary – extraordinary dialectics in tourist metropolises

Environmental effects on the ionisation of brown dwarf atmospheres

Context. Brown dwarfs emit bursts of Hα, white-light flares, and show radio flares and quiescent radio emission. They are suggested to form aurorae, similar to planets in the solar system, but much more energetic. All these processes require a source gas with an appropriate degree of ionisation, which, so far, is mostly postulated to be sufficient. Aims. We aim to demonstrate that the Galactic environment influences atmospheric ionisation, and that it hence amplifies or enables the magnetic coupling of the atmospheres of ultra-cool objects, like brown dwarfs and free-floating planets. Methods. We build on our previous work on thermal ionisation of ultra-cool atmospheres and explore the effect of environmental high-energy radiation on the degree of ionisation in the atmosphere. We consider the effect of photoionisation by Lyman-continuum radiation in three different environments: in the interstellar radiation field (ISRF), O and B stars in star-forming regions, and in white dwarf companions in binary systems. We apply our Monte Carlo radiation transfer code to investigate the effect of Lyman-continuum photoionisation for prescribed atmosphere structures for very low-mass objects. Results. The external radiation environment plays an important role for the atmospheric ionisation of very low-mass, ultra-cool objects. Lyman-continuum irradiation greatly increases the level of ionisation in the uppermost atmospheric regions. Our results suggest that a shell of an almost fully ionised atmospheric gas emerges for brown dwarfs in star-forming regions and brown dwarfs in white dwarf binary systems. As a consequence, brown dwarf atmospheres can be magnetically coupled, which is the presumption for chromospheric heating to occur and for aurorae to emerge. First tests for assumed chromosphere-like temperature values suggest that the resulting free-free X-ray luminosities are comparable with those observed from non-accreting brown dwarfs in star-forming regions.

Reconciling the Predictions of Microlensing Analysis with Radial Velocity Measurements for OGLE-2011-BLG-0417

Abstract Microlensing is able to reveal multiple body systems located several kilo-parsec away from the Earth. Since it does not require the measurement of light from the lens, microlensing is sensitive to a range of objects, from free-floating planets to stellar black holes. But, if the lens emits enough light, the microlensing model predictions can be tested with high-resolution imaging and/or radial velocity methods. Such a follow-up was done for the microlensing event OGLE-2011-BLG-0417, which was expected to be a close by (≤1 kpc), low-mass (∼0.8 M ⊙) binary star with a period of P ∼ 1.4 year. The spectroscopic follow-up observations conducted with the Very Large Telescope did not measure any variation in the radial velocity, which is in strong contradiction with the published microlensing model. In the present work, we remodel this event and find a simpler model that is in agreement with all the available measurements, including the recent Gaia Data Release 2 parallax constraints. We also present a new way to distinguish degenerate models using the Gaia Data Release 2 proper motions. This work stresses the importance of thorough microlensing modeling, especially with the horizon of the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope and the Euclid microlensing space missions.

Survivability of moon systems around ejected gas giants

ABSTRACT We examine the effects that planetary encounters have on the moon systems of ejected gas giant planets. We conduct a suite of numerical simulations of planetary systems containing three Jupiter-mass planets (with the innermost planet at 3 au) up to the point where a planet is ejected from the system. The ejected planet has an initial system of 100 test-particle moons. We determine the survival probability of moons at different distances from their host planet, measure the final distribution of orbital elements, examine the stability of resonant configurations, and characterize the properties of moons that are stripped from the planets. We find that moons are likely to survive in orbits with semi-major axes out beyond 200 planetary radii (0.1 au in our case). The orbital inclinations and eccentricities of the surviving moons are broadly distributed and include nearly hyperbolic orbits and retrograde orbits. We find that a large fraction of moons in two-body and three-body mean-motion resonances also survive planetary ejection with the resonance intact. The moon–planet interactions, especially in the presence of mean-motion resonance, can keep the interior of the moons molten for billions of years via tidal flexing, as is seen in the moons of the gas giant planets in the solar system. Given the possibility that life may exist in the subsurface ocean of the Galilean satellite Europa, these results have implications for life on the moons of rogue planets – planets that drift through our Galaxy with no host star.

Measurement of Source Star Colors with the K2C9-CFHT Multi-color Microlensing Survey

Microlensing events observed from locations separated by ∼au have different peak times and peak magnifications due to microlensing parallax. K2 Campaign 9 (K2C9) was the first space-based microlensing parallax survey capable of measuring microlensing parallaxes of free-floating planet candidate microlensing events. Simultaneous to K2C9 observations we conducted the K2C9 Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope Multi-Color Microlensing Survey (K2C9-CFHT MCMS) in order to measure the colors of microlensing source stars to improve the accuracy of K2C9’s parallax measurements. We describe the difference imaging photometry analysis of the K2C9-CFHT MCMS observations, and present the project’s first data release. This includes instrumental difference flux light curves in up to three filters (g, r, and i) of microlensing events identified by other microlensing surveys, reference image photometry of more than 30 million point sources calibrated to PanSTARRS data release 1 photometry with an absolute accuracy better than 0.02 mag . We derive accurate analytic transformations between the PanSTARRS bandpasses and the Kepler bandpass, as well as color-surface brightness relations in the PanSTARRS bandpasses. To demonstrate the use of our data set, we analyze ground-based and K2 data of a short timescale microlensing event, OGLE-2016-BLG-0795. We find the event has a timescale tE = 4.5 ± 0.1 days and microlens parallax πE = 0.09 ± 0.03 or 0.91 ± 0.04, subject to the standard satellite parallax degeneracy. We argue that the smaller value of the parallax is more likely, which implies that the lens is likely a stellar-mass object in the Galactic bulge as opposed to a super-Jupiter mass object in the Galactic disk.

Detecting free-floating planets using water-dependent colour terms in the next generation of infrared space-based surveys

The next decade will see two large-scale space-based near-infrared surveys, Euclid and WFIRST. This paper shows that the subtle differences between the filters proposed for these surveys and those from ground-based photometric systems will produce a ground-space colour term that is dependent on water absorption in the spectra of astronomical objects. This colour term can be used to identify free-floating planets in star forming regions, mimicking a successful ground-based technique that uses a filter sensitive to water absorption. This paper shows that this colour term is an effective discriminant between reddened background stars and ultracool dwarfs. This represents just one science justification for a Galactic Plane survey in the event of an extension to the Euclid mission beyond its original timeframe.

Tidal Decay of Circumbinary Planetary Systems

Abstract It is shown that circumbinary planetary systems are subject to universal tidal decay (shrinkage of orbits), caused by the forced orbital eccentricity inherent to them. Circumbinary planets (CBPs) are liberated from parent systems when, owing to the shrinkage, they enter the circumbinary chaotic zone. On shorter timescales (less than the current age of the universe), the effect may explain, at least partially, the observed lack of CBPs of close-enough (with periods <5 days) stellar binaries; on longer timescales (greater than the age of the universe but well within stellar lifetimes), it may provide massive liberation of chemically evolved CBPs. Observational signatures of the effect may comprise (1) a prevalence of large rocky planets (super-Earths) in the whole population of rogue planets (if this mechanism were the only source of rogue planets); (2) a mass-dependent paucity of CBPs in systems of low-mass binaries: the lower the stellar mass, the greater the paucity.

The astrometric signal of microlensing events caused by free floating planets

Astrometric observations of microlensing events can be used to obtain important information about lenses. During these events, the shift of the position of the multiple image centroid with respect to the source star location can be measured. This effect, which is expected to occur on scales from micro-arcseconds to milli-arcseconds, depends on the lens-source-observer system physical parameters. Here, we consider the astrometric and photometric observations by space and ground-based telescopes of microlensing events towards the Galactic bulge caused by free floating planets (FFPs). We show that the efficiency of astrometric signal on photometrically detected microlensing events tends to increase for higher FFP masses in our Galaxy. In addition, we estimate that during five years of the Gaia observations, about a dozen of microlensing events caused by FFPs are expected to be detectable.

A threshold model for polydactyly

We present a cellular automaton-based model for threshold behaviors in vertebrate digit patterning and polydactyly formation. The rules of the model follow classical reactor-diffusion algorithms. Yet it is not physical diffusion that is taken as the required natural agent but the propagation of cellular states, which can be represented by the same differential equations. The bistable cellular states in the model correspond to mesenchymal limb bud cells that can be either "on" or "off" for the cartilage differentiation pathway. Simulation runs demonstrate that reaction rate and cell number have the most decisive influence on the number of digit-like cell activation patterns. Threshold-based effects can generate supernumerary activation stripes via de novo condensation, stabilized bifurcation, and free floaters. All three behaviors are consistent with processes in natural polydactyly formation. It is argued that these effects are rooted in cell-based behaviors, not in gene regulation or globally diffusing morphogens. Our model suggests that the origin of discrete character states, such as individual digits, is a consequence of an additive cell state variable with a normal distribution that is transformed by a growth function with Turing behaviors into discontinuous phenotypic units. We discuss the application of this type of autopod patterning to the mutational, developmental, experimental, and evolutionary occurrences of polydactyly. The model provides a refinement of the previous Hemingway model for digit novelty and supports Turing type pattern formation in the vertebrate limb.