Issue |
A&A
Volume 375, Number 2, August IV 2001
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 701 - 710 | |
Section | Numerical methods and codes | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20010783 | |
Published online | 15 August 2001 |
Resolving gravitational microlensing events with long-baseline optical interferometry
Prospects for the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer
1
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschildstr. 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
2
Warsaw University Observatory, Aleje Ujazdowskie 4, 00-478 Warsaw, Poland
Corresponding author: F. Delplanke, fdelplan@eso.org
Received:
6
February
2001
Accepted:
29
May
2001
Until now, the detailed interpretation of the observed microlensing events
has suffered from the fact that the physical parameters of the
phenomenon cannot be uniquely determined from the available
astronomical measurements, i.e. the photometric lightcurves.
The situation will change in the near-future
with the availability of long-baseline, sensitive optical interferometers,
which should be able to resolve the images of the lensed objects
into their components.
For this, it will be necessary to
achieve a milliarcsecond resolution on sources with typical magnitudes
K . Indeed, brighter events have never been observed up to now by
micro-lensing surveys. We discuss the possibilities opened by the use
of long baseline interferometry in general, and in particular for one
such facility,
the ESO VLT Interferometer, which will attain the required performance.
We discuss the expected accuracy and limiting magnitude of such measurements.
On the basis of the database of the events detected by the OGLE
experiment,
we estimate the number of microlenses that could be available
for measurements by the VLTI. We find that at least
several tens of events could be observed each year.
In conjunction with the photometric data,
our ability to measure the angular separation
between the microlensed images
will enable
a direct and unambiguous determination of both their masses and
locations.
Key words: gravitation / instrumentation: interferometers / techniques: interferometric / gravitational lensing
© ESO, 2001
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