Microlensing Searches for Exoplanets

Abstract

Gravitational microlensing finds planets through their gravitational influence on the light coming from a more distant background star. The presence of the planet is then inferred from the tell-tale brightness variations of the background star during the lensing event, even if no light is detectable from the planet or the host foreground star. This review covers fundamental theoretical concepts in microlensing, addresses how observations are performed in practice, the challenges of obtaining accurate measurements, and explains how planets reveal themselves in the data. It concludes with a presentation of the most important findings to-date, a description of the method’s strengths and weaknesses, and a discussion of the future prospects of microlensing.

Keywords

• extrasolar planets
• general relativity
• microlensing
• galactic bulge
• planetary systems
• exoplanets