Open AccessAn additional application of the Space Interferometry Mission to gravitational microlensing experiments
Author(s) -
Han Cheongho,
Kim TuWhan
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.02456.x
Subject(s) - gravitational microlensing , physics , gravitational lens , degeneracy (biology) , astrophysics , parameter space , dark matter , strong gravitational lensing , photometry (optics) , einstein ring , astronomy , lens (geology) , interferometry , gravitation , weak gravitational lensing , stars , galaxy , optics , bioinformatics , statistics , mathematics , redshift , biology
Despite the detection of a large number of gravitational microlensing events, the nature of Galactic dark matter remains very uncertain. This uncertainty is because of two major reasons: the lens parameter degeneracy in the measured Einstein time‐scale and the blending problem in dense field photometry. Recently, consideration has been given to routine astrometric follow‐up observations of lensing events using the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) as a means of breaking the lens parameter degeneracy in microlensing events. In this paper, we show that in addition to breaking the lens parameter degeneracy, SIM observations can also be used to correct for nearly all types of blending. Therefore, by resolving both the problems of the lens parameter degeneracy and blending, SIM observations of gravitational lensing events will significantly better constrain the nature of Galactic dark matter.