Simulating quasar microlensing light curves: High magnification events

TL;DR

This paper models and estimates the frequency and characteristics of high magnification events in quasar microlensing, aiding future observational strategies for large sky surveys.

Contribution

It provides a detailed characterization and estimation of observable high magnification events in quasar microlensing systems for ground-based telescopes.

Findings

Approximately 60 HMEs with >0.3 mag amplitude per year in selected systems.

Saddle images are four times more likely to host HMEs than minima.

Caustic crossings occur in about 10% of saddle events and 50% of minima events.

Abstract

Quasar microlensing can be used to constrain important astrophysical properties, such as the accretion disk size and the amount of stars in the lensing galaxy. The associated brightness variations over time, in particular high magnification events (HMEs) and caustic crossings, can yield precise constraints due to their strong dependence on the relative projected velocities of the components and accretion disk size. The next generation of large sky area surveys, such as The Vera Rubin Observatory (LSST) and Euclid, are expected to find and follow-up thousands of lensed quasars from which such events could be identified and observed. In this work we present a characterization and estimation of all HMEs that could potentially be observed, focusing on systems that could be identified by ground based telescopes. From systems whose minimum image separation is at least 1 arcsec, and their second dimmest image is at least 21.5 magnitudes in the i-band ($\sim560$ in the southern or northern sky), we estimate $\sim60$ HMEs with amplitudes $>0.3$ [mag] in the r-band per year. We find that on average, saddle images are approximately four times more likely to host events than minima, and $\sim10\%$ ($\sim50\%$) of events are caustic crossings for saddles (minima). We also find that HMEs in saddle images can have amplitudes $\sim1-2$ [mag] larger than minima.