Extrasolar Moons as Gravitational Microlenses Christine Liebig

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$µ MATH-PHYS-INFO - Fachschaft MathPhys an der Uni Heidelberg$

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 5 tool to discover an Earth-Moon analogue, but concluded that finite source effects would probably be too severe in realistic observing situations. Williams and Knacke (2004) published the quite original suggestion to look for spectral signatures of Earth-sized moons in the spectra of Jupiter-sized planets. Cabrera and Schneider (2007) proposed a sophisticated transit approach to detect “binary planets”, i.e. planet-companion systems with a mass ratio close to unity. Lewis et al. (2008) analysed pulsar time-of-arrival signals for lunar signatures. None of these methods has achieved successful detections yet. Han (2008) undertook a new qualitative study of a number of microlensing constellations finding non-negligible light curve signals occur in the case of an Earthmass companion orbiting a 10 Earth-mass planet at the right angular separation. For planets with masses in the mass range between Uranus and Jupiter, he defines regions of possible satellite detections as the region of angular separations between the lower limit of one planetary Einstein radius and an upper limit at the projected Hill-radius average. We do not quite agree with this proposition, as will become clear during the presentation of our results. Outline In chapter 2, the basic concepts of gravitational lensing are outlined and in particular the application to planetary lensing is briefly summarised. Chapter 3 gives an extensive overview over how we approached the given problem of identifying light curve perturbations caused by a moon, and which methods are used to solve it. Because we had to restrict our research to a subset of possible scenarios involving a moon, these choices are motivated in chapter 4 by discussing the astrophysical context that we are dealing with. Chapter 5 presents the results of our simulations and a first interpretation. This thesis ends with concluding remarks in chapter 6. The appendix chapters A and B contain additional documentation in a visual and numerical form, respectively.
6 Figure 1.1: The solar system seen as a gravitational lens. A magnification map of the solar system. Celestial bodies are at the positions marked with crosses. Along the lines connecting the planets with the sun, one finds the planetary caustics. With a larger separation of the planet, the caustic moves towards the planet. Separations in this image correspond to the semi-major axes, if this was a lensing system illuminated by a background source at a distance of 2 kpc seen from an observer on the other side at a distance of 6 kpc. In this setting Jupiter might well be detectable from outside the solar system.
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Appendix A Analysed Magnification P
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APPENDIX A. ANALYSED MAGNIFICATION
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Appendix B Numerical Results In thi
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APPENDIX B. NUMERICAL RESULTS 67 (a
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70 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bevington, Philip R
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72 BIBLIOGRAPHY eprint arXiv:0803.4
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74 BIBLIOGRAPHY Sartoretti, Paola a
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76 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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78 BIBLIOGRAPHY Gabriele Maier. I t
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Extrasolar Moons as Gravitational Microlenses Christine Liebig

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