KMT-2023-BLG-2669: Ninth Free-floating Planet Candidate with θ E Measurements

Abstract

We report a free-floating planet (FFP) candidate identified from the analysis of the microlensing event KMT-2023-BLG-2669. The lensing light curve is characterized by a short duration (≲3 days) and a small amplitude (≲0.7 mag). From the analysis, we find an Einstein timescale of t _E ⋍ 0.33 days and an Einstein radius of θ _E ⋍ 4.41 μ as. These measurements enable us to infer the lens mass as $M=8\,{M}_{\oplus }{\left({\pi }_{\mathrm{rel}}/0.1\,\mathrm{mas}\right)}^{-1}$ , where π _rel is the relative lens–source parallax. The inference implies that the lens is a sub-Neptune- to Saturn-mass object, depending on its unknown distance. This is the ninth isolated planetary mass microlens with θ _E < 10 μ as, which is a useful threshold for an FFP candidate. We conduct extensive searches for possible signals of a host star in the light curve, but find no strong evidence for the host. We investigate the possibility of using late-time high-resolution imaging to probe for possible hosts. In particular, we discuss the case of finite-source point-lens FFP candidates, for which it would be possible to search for very-wide-separation hosts immediately, although such searches are “high risk, high reward.”

Keywords

• Gravitational microlensing exoplanet detection