Detecting Extrasolar Asteroid Belts Through Their Microlensing Signatures
arXiv:1601.03052 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2645
Abstract
We propose that extrasolar asteroid belts can be detected through their gravitational microlensing signatures. Asteroid belt + star lens systems create so-called "pseudo-caustics", regions in the source plane where the magnification exhibits a finite but discontinuous jump. These features allow such systems to generate distinctive signatures in the microlensing light curves for a wide range of belt configurations, with source trajectories as far as tenths of the Einstein ring radius from the centre of the lens. Sample light curves for a range of asteroid belt parameters are presented. In the near future, space-based microlensing surveys like WFIRST, which will have the power to detect percent-level changes in microlensing light curves even with sub-minute exposure times, may be able to discover extrasolar asteroid belts with masses of the order of an earth mass.
8 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
References in corpus (12)
- Wide-Field InfrarRed Survey Telescope-Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets WFIRST-AFTA 2015 Report
- A disintegrating minor planet transiting a white dwarf
- Modeling giant extrasolar ring systems in eclipse and the case of J1407b: sculpting by exomoons?
- A Terrestrial Planet in a ~1 AU Orbit Around One Member of a ~15 AU Binary
- Mid-infrared resolution of a 3 AU-radius debris disk around Zeta Leporis
- Multiwavelength Transit Observations of the Candidate Disintegrating Planetesimals Orbiting WD 1145+017
- Critical Curves and Caustics of Triple-lens Models
- 12 and 18 micron images of dust surrounding HD 32297
- Strong Lensing by Binary Galaxies Modelled as Isothermal Spheres
- Elliptically Symmetric Lenses and Violation of Burke's Theorem
- The Effective Cross-sections of a Lensing-galaxy: Singular Isothermal Sphere with External Shear
- Gravitational Lensing by Ring-Like Structures