20 years of photometric microlensing events predicted by Gaia DR2: Potential planet-hosting lenses within 100 pc

TL;DR

This study predicts 7 potential microlensing events within 20 years using Gaia DR2 data, highlighting opportunities to detect and study cold planets around nearby low-mass stars through gravitational lensing.

Contribution

It identifies specific future microlensing events caused by nearby stars within 100 pc, providing detailed predictions and magnification estimates to facilitate observational follow-up.

Findings

7 high-probability microlensing events identified before 2035

One event in 2030 with a median 23% magnification

Lensing events can reveal cold planets near the ice line around low-mass stars

Abstract

Context. Gaia DR2 offers unparalleled precision on stars' parallaxes and proper motions. This allows the prediction of microlensing events for which the lens stars (and any planets they possess) are nearby and may be well studied and characterised. Aims. We identify a number of potential microlensing events that will occur before the year 2035.5, 20 years from the Gaia DR2 reference epoch. Methods. We query Gaia DR2 for potential lenses within 100 pc, extract parallaxes and proper motions of the lenses and background sources, and identify potential lensing events. We estimate the lens masses from Priam effective temperatures, and use these to calculate peak magnifications and the size of the Einstein radii relative to the lens stars' habitable zones. Results. We identify 7 future events with a probability > 10% of an alignment within one Einstein radius. Of particular interest is DR2 5918299904067162240 (WISE J175839.20-583931.6), magnitude G = 14.9, which will lens a G = 13.9 background star in early 2030, with a median 23% net magnification. Other pairs are typically fainter, hampering characterisation of the lens (if the lens is faint) or the ability to accurately measure the magnification (if the source is much fainter than the lens). Of timely interest is DR2 4116504399886241792 (2MASS J17392440-2327071), which will lens a background star in July 2020, albeit with weak net magnification (0.03%). Median magnifications for the other 5 high-probability events range from 0.3% to 5.3%. The Einstein radii for these lenses are 1-10 times the radius of the habitable zone, allowing these lensing events to pick out cold planets around the ice line, and filling a gap between transit and current microlensing detections of planets around very low-mass stars. Conclusions. We provide a catalogue of the predicted events to aid future characterisation efforts... [abridged]