Discovering Exoplanets with Nature's own Lensing

Aparna Bhattacharya

Assistant Research Scientist
University of Maryland, College Park
NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre.

Wed, October 23, 2024 ~ 4:00

Microlensing is a method that discovers exoplanets using the gravitational effect of bending lights. This technique is used to detect exoplanets similar to solar system analog planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus. Even though thousands of exoplanets have been discovered so far, most of them are very close and hot ( e.g. Venus Mercury type) to their host stars or very far from their host stars. This is because most planets are discovered using techniques like transit and radial velocity. However microlensing is sensitive to planets that are cold and in wide orbit.

My talk would focus on the light curves that detect the planets. We also do follow up high resolution observations with Hubble Space Telescope and Keck to confirm their host stars. This tec. hnique will help us to complete the exoplanets census, a mission started by Kepler. The importance of this technique is recognized by decadal survey of 2010 and is now one of the main surveys of upcoming mission Roman Space Telescope, to be launched in 2026

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