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A brown dwarf orbiting an M-dwarf: MOA 2009-BLG-411L

Bachelet, E ; Sharif University ot Technology | 2012

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201219765
  3. Publisher: 2012
  4. Abstract:
  5. Context. Caustic crossing is the clearest signature of binary lenses in microlensing. In the present context, this signature is diluted by the large source star but a detailed analysis has allowed the companion signal to be extracted. Aims. MOA 2009-BLG-411 was detected on August 5, 2009 by the MOA-Collaboration. Alerted as a high-magnification event, it was sensitive to planets. Suspected anomalies in the light curve were not confirmed by a real-time model, but further analysis revealed small deviations from a single lens extended source fit. Methods. Thanks to observations by all the collaborations, this event was well monitored. We first decided to characterize the source star properties by using a more refined method than the classical one: we measure the interstellar absorption along the line of sight in five different passbands (VIJHK). Secondly, we model the lightcurve by using the standard technique: make (s,q,α) grids to look for local minima and refine the results by using a downhill method (Markov chain Monte Carlo). Finally, we use a Galactic model to estimate the physical properties of the lens components. Results. We find that the source star is a giant G star with radius 9 R ·. The grid search gives two local minima, which correspond to the theoretical degeneracy s s-1. We find that the lens is composed of a brown dwarf secondary of mass MS = 0.05 M· orbiting a primary M-star of mass MP = 0.18 M·. We also reveal a new mass-ratio degeneracy for the central caustics of close binaries. Conclusions. As far as we are aware, this is the first detection using the microlensing technique of a binary system in our Galaxy composed of an M-star and a brown dwarf
  6. Keywords:
  7. Binaries: general ; Gravitational lensing: micro ; Stars: individual: MOA 2009-BLG-411L ; Binary systems ; Brown dwarfs ; Downhill method ; Extended sources ; Gravitational lensing ; Grid search ; Light curves ; Line of Sight ; Local minimums ; Markov chain Monte Carlo ; Micro-lensing ; Passbands ; Real-time models ; Stars: individual ; Curve fitting ; Stars
  8. Source: Astronomy and Astrophysics ; Volume 547 , 2012 ; 00046361 (ISSN)
  9. URL: http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2012/11/aa19765-12/aa19765-12.html