Prediction of Planet Yields by the PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment Microlensing Survey

Abstract

The PRime-focus Infrared Microlensing Experiment (PRIME) will be the first to conduct a dedicated near infrared (NIR) microlensing survey by using a 1.8m telescope with a wide field of view of 1.45 $\mathrm{de}{\mathrm{g}}^2$ at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO). The major goals of the PRIME microlensing survey are to measure the microlensing event rate in the inner Galactic bulge to help design the observing strategy for the exoplanet microlensing survey by the {\it Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope} and to make a first statistical measurement of exoplanet demographics in the central bulge fields where optical observations are very difficult owing to the high extinction in these fields. Here we conduct a simulation of the PRIME microlensing survey to estimate its planet yields and determine the optimal survey strategy, using a Galactic model optimized for the inner Galactic bulge. In order to maximize the number of planet detections and the range of planet mass, we compare the planet yields among four observation strategies. Assuming {the \citet{2012Natur.481..167C} mass function as modified by \citet{2019ApJS..241....3P}}, we predict that PRIME will detect planetary signals for $42-52$ planets ($1-2$ planets with $M_p\le 1M_{\oplus }$, $22-25$ planets with mass $1M_{\oplus }<M_p\le 100M_{\oplus }$, $19-25$ planets $100M_{\oplus }<M_p\le 10000M_{\oplus }$), per year depending on the chosen observation strategy.

25 pages, 17 figures, and 3 tables. Accept for publication in The Astronomical Journal

References in corpus (22)

• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• One or more bound planets per Milky Way star from microlensing observations
• The UKIDSS Galactic Plane Survey
• The Structure of the Milky Way's Bar Outside the Bulge
• No large population of unbound or wide-orbit Jupiter-mass planets
• The Exoplanet Mass-Ratio Function from the MOA-II Survey: Discovery of a Break and Likely Peak at a Neptune Mass
• OGLE-IV: Fourth Phase of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment
• Identification of the OGLE-2003-BLG-235/MOA-2003-BLG-53 Planetary Host Star
• Predictions of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Galactic Exoplanet Survey II: Free-Floating Planet Detection Rates
• Optimal Survey Strategies and Predicted Planet Yields for the Korean Microlensing Telescope Network
• The Bar and Spiral Arms in the Milky Way: Structure and Kinematics
• Mapping the stellar age of the Milky Way bulge with the VVV. III. High resolution reddening map
• Systematic KMTNet Planetary Anomaly Search. IV. Complete Sample of 2019 Prime-Field
• A Parametric Galactic Model toward the Galactic Bulge Based on Gaia and Microlensing Data
• UKIRT microlensing surveys as a pathfinder for $WFIRST$: The detection of five highly extinguished low-$|b|$ events
• Systematic KMTNet Planetary Anomaly Search, Paper VII: Complete Sample of $q<10^{-4}$ Planets from the First Four-Year Survey
• Euclid-Roman joint microlensing survey: early mass measurement, free floating planets and exomoons
• No Large Dependence of Planet Frequency on Galactocentric Distance
• VVV Survey Microlensing: the Galactic Latitude Dependence
• Deep PSF photometric catalog of the VVV survey data
• Comparing Observed Stellar Kinematics and Surface Densities in a Low Latitude Bulge Field to Galactic Population Synthesis Models
• Unveiling short period binaries in the inner VVV bulge

Cited by in corpus (3)

• The first Palomar Gattini-IR catalog of J-band light curves: construction and public data release
• How Rare are TESS Free-Floating Planets?
• A Minute-Cadence Deep Bulge Survey: First Data Release of DREAMS