Microlensing Resources in the Exoplanet Archive

This page describes the resources available in the Exoplanet Archive for planets discovered using the microlensing technique.

Technique Overview

Gravitational microlensing refers to the transient magnification of the apparent brightness of a distant star that is caused by the gravitational potential of an intervening "lensing" system. If this lens system contains one or more planets, it is often possible to measure their properties from the structure of the resulting light curve. For more details, see this review on planet detection with microlensing or this community-maintained web resource with introductory microlensing explanations and interactive demonstrations of the effect.

Microlensing Table

The interactive Microlensing Table contains all microlensing-specific observational and model parameters for confirmed planets discovered with the microlensing technique. If more than one solution or model is presented, they will get listed in this table as separate rows.

This table can also be accessed with queries to the archive's application programming interface (API). See the API User Guide for instructions on using the service and the Microlensing Table Data Column Defiintions page for the full list of database column names and definitions.

To compare and review microlensing planets against other confirmed planets, use the Planetary Systems Table (see below).

Planetary Systems Table

Planets discovered with the microlensing technique that meet the archive's exoplanet criteria are included in the Planetary Systems Table. This table displays all solutions for planet and host star solutions. To view only the microlensing data, enter microlensing in the filter box in the Discovery Method column.

Some planetary systems act as a lens during a gravitational microlensing event. To see all planets detected via this technique:

  1. Click the Select Columns button and scroll to the Detections menu.
  2. Check Detected by Microlensing.
  3. Click Update and close the pop-up box.
  4. Find the Detected by Microlensing column and enter 1 in the filter box.

The microlensing planet count is also available on the Exoplanet and Candidate Statistics page. Note that clicking on Microlensing in the Confirmed Exoplanets Statistics table takes you to the Planetary Systems Table with that filter already applied.

Additional references are listed in the System Overview page for each object, which you can view by clicking on the planet name in the Planetary Systems Table. Microlensing-specific parameters for all solutions within a paper are listed in the Microlensing Table.

Contributed Data

Many members of the community have provided the data for their microlensing light curves. These are available either as a set from the Bulk Download page or individually by object. Instructions on how to access these for an individual object are here. Please note, we currently have data for most, but not all, microlensing objects.

The archive also hosts statistically large ensembles of light curve data from ground-based microlensing surveys. Specifically, our holdings include 78.2 million light curves (205 GB) for the UKIRT microlensing survey, collected from 2015–2018, as well as approximately 6,000 light curves (22 GB) for the MOA survey, collected from 2006–2014.

If you have data from a peer-reviewed paper that you would like to contribute, please read the guidelines on how to contribute data.

ExoFOP Support for K2 Microlensing Campaign 9 (C9)

K2 Campaign 9 took place from April 22 to July 2, 2016 and was dedicated to a study of gravitational microlensing events. The C9 microlensing experiment involves the Kepler spacecraft observing in the +VV direction at fields toward the Galactic bulge. The aim of this program is to simultaneously observe gravitational microlensing events with K2 and from Earth to see a parallax effect in the shape and time of the lensing event. This white paper describes the ground-based observing resources and scientific motivations of this experiment.

The Exoplanet Follow-up Observing Program (ExoFOP) web site is designed to optimize resources and facilitate collaboration in follow-up studies of exoplanet candidates. ExoFOP serves as a repository for community-gathered follow-up data by allowing upload and display of data and derived astrophysical parameters.

The ExoFOP-K2 C9 site includes a list of microlensing events within the K2 field and lists of telescope resources for follow-up observations. Users can upload their own data to the site.

Additional Links



Last updated 27 April 2021