Probing the Atmospheres of Planets Orbiting Microlensed Stars via Polarization Variability

Abstract

We present a new method to identify and probe planetary companions of stars in the Galactic Bulge and Magellanic Clouds using gravitational microlensing. While spectroscopic studies of these planets is well beyond current observational techniques, monitoring polarization fluctuations during high magnification events induced by binary microlensing events will probe the composition of the planetary atmospheres, an observation which otherwise is currently unattainable even for nearby planetary systems.

arXiv comment7 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (14)

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• Probable detection of starlight reflected from the giant exoplanet orbiting tau Bootis
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• Gravitational Microlensing Evidence for a Planet Orbiting a Binary Star System
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• Microlensing of Broad Absorption Line Quasars
• Microlensing of Broad Absorption Line Quasars: Polarization Variability

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Probing Structures of Distant Extrasolar Planets with Microlensing
• Gravitational microlensing of planets: the influence of planetary phase and caustic orientation
• Detection of Exoplanet as a Binary Source of Microlensing Events in WFIRST Survey
• Relativistic corrections to astrometric shifts due to gravitational microlensing
• Gravitational microlensing of stars with transiting planets
• Can We Probe the Atmospheric Composition of an Extrasolar Planet from its Reflection Spectrum in a High-Magnification Microlensing Event?
• Another Channel to detect Close-in Binary Companions via Gravitational Microlensing