• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.235-236
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• 2015

Microlensing can be seen as a version of strong gravitation lensing where the separation angle of the image formed by light deflection by a massive object is too small to be seen by a ground based optical telescope. As a result, what can be observed is the change in light intensity as function of time; the light curve. Conventionally, the intensity of the source is expressed in magnitudes, which uses a logarithmic function of the apparent flux, known as the Pogson formulae. In this work, we compare the magnitudes from the Pogson formulae with magnitudes from the Asinh formulae (Lupton et al. 1999). We found for small fluxes, Asinh magnitudes give smaller deviations, about 0.01 magnitudes smalller than Pogson magnitudes. This result is expected to give significant improvement in detection level of microlensing light curves.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.40.3-40.3
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• 2018

We present results from our two experiments of using machine learning algorithms in processing and analyzing the KMTNet imaging data. First, density estimation and clustering methods find meaningful structures in the metric space of imaging quality measurements described by photometric quantities. Second, we also develop a method to separate out light curves of reliable microlensing event candidates from spurious events, estimating reliability scores of the candidates.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.93-107
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• 2016

Augmenting the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) microlensing campaigns with intensive observations from a ground-based network of wide-field survey telescopes would have several major advantages. First, it would enable full two-dimensional (2-D) vector microlens parallax measurements for a substantial fraction of low-mass lenses as well as planetary and binary events that show caustic crossing features. For a significant fraction of the free-floating planet (FFP) events and all caustic-crossing planetary/binary events, these 2-D parallax measurements directly lead to complete solutions (mass, distance, transverse velocity) of the lens object (or lens system). For even more events, the complementary ground-based observations will yield 1-D parallax measurements. Together with the 1-D parallaxes from WFIRST alone, they can probe the entire mass range M ≳ M_⊕. For luminous lenses, such 1-D parallax measurements can be promoted to complete solutions (mass, distance, transverse velocity) by high-resolution imaging. This would provide crucial information not only about the hosts of planets and other lenses, but also enable a much more precise Galactic model. Other benefits of such a survey include improved understanding of binaries (particularly with low mass primaries), and sensitivity to distant ice-giant and gas-giant companions of WFIRST lenses that cannot be detected by WFIRST itself due to its restricted observing windows. Existing ground-based microlensing surveys can be employed if WFIRST is pointed at lower-extinction fields than is currently envisaged. This would come at some cost to the event rate. Therefore the benefits of improved characterization of lenses must be weighed against these costs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.61.3-61.3
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• 2019

We report the status of KMTNet (Korea Microlensing Telescope Network) microlensing. From KMTNet event-finder, we are annually detecting over 2500 microlensing events. In 2018, we have carried out a real-time alert for only the Northern bulge fields. It was very helpful to select Spitzer targets. Thanks to the real-time alert, KMT-only events for which OGLE and MOA could not detect have been largely increased. The KMTNet event-finder and alert-finder algorithms are being upgraded every year. From these, we found 18 exoplanets and various interesting events, such as an exomoon-candidate, a free-floating candidate, and brown dwarfs, which are very difficult to be detected by other techniques including radial velocity and transit. In 2019, the KMTNet alert will be available in real-time for all bulge fields. As before, we will continue to collaborate with Spitzer team to measure the microlens parallaxes, which are required for estimating physical parameters of the lens. Thus, the KMTNet alert will be helpful to select Spitzer targets again. Also we plan to do follow-up observations for high-magnification events to study the planet multiplicity function. The KMTNet alert will play an important role to do follow-up observations for high-magnification events. Also, we will search for free-floating planets with short timescale (< 3 days) to study the planet frequency in our Galaxy.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2002

Gaudi, Naber & Sackett pointed out that if an event is caused by a lens system containing more than two planets, all planets will affect the central region of the magnification pattern, and thus the existence of the multiple planets can be inferred by detecting additionally deformed anomalies from intensive monitoring of high magnification microlensing events. Unfortunately, this method has important limitations in identifying the existence of multiple planets and determining their parameters (the mass ratio and the instantaneous projected separation) due to the degeneracy of the resulting light curve anomalies from those induced by a single planet and the complexity of multiple planet lensing models. In this paper, we propose a new channel to search for multiple planets via microlensing. The method is based on the fact that the lensing light curve anomalies induced by multiple planets are well approximated by the superposition of those of the single planet systems where the individual planet-primary pairs act as independent lens systems. Then, if the source trajectory passes both of the outer deviation regions induced by the individual planets, one can unambiguously identify the existence of the multiple planets. We illustrate that the probability of successively detecting light curve anomalies induced by two Jovian-mass planets located in the lensing zone through this channel will be substantial. Since the individual anomalies can be well described by much simpler single planet lensing models, the proposed method has an important advantage of allowing one to accurately determine the parameters of the individual planets.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.72.1-72.1
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• 2013

Even though current microlensing follow-up observations focus on high-magnification events due to the high efficiency of planet detection, it is very difficult to do a confident detection of planets in high-magnification events with extremely weak central perturbations (i.e., the fractional deviation is ${\delta}{\leq}0.02$). For the confident detection of planets in the extremely weak central perturbation events, it is needed both the high cadence monitoring and the high photometric accuracy. A next-generation ground-based observation project, KMTNet (Korea Microlensing Telescope Network), satisfies both the conditions. Here we investigate how well planets in high-magnification events with extremely weak central perturbations are detected by KMTNet. First, we determine the probability of occurrence of events with ${\delta}{\leq}0.02$. From this, we find that for ${\leq}100M_E$ planets in the separation of $0.2AU{\leq}d{\leq}20AU$, events with ${\delta}{\leq}0.02$ occur with a frequency of more than 70%, in which d is the projected planet-star separation. Second, we estimate the efficiency of detecting planetary signals in the events with ${\delta}{\leq}0.02$ via KMTNet. We find that for main-sequence and subgiant source stars, ${\geq}1M_E$ planets can be detected more than 50% in a certain range that has the efficiency of ${\geq}10%$ and changes with the planet mass.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.77.1-77.1
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• 2016

We investigate the properties and detection conditions for the planetary caustic perturbation of close-separation planets. To find the properties of the planetary caustic perturbation, we construct deviation maps by subtracting the single-lensing magnification of the lens star from the planetary lensing magnification for various lensing parameters. We find that each deviation area of the positive and negative perturbations disappears at the same normalized source radius according to a given deviation threshold regardless of mass ratio but disappears at a different normalized source radius according to the separation. We also estimate the upper limit of the normalized source radius to detect the planetary caustic perturbation. We find simple relations between the upper limit of the normalized source radius and the lensing parameters. From the relations, we obtain an analytic condition for the detection limit of the planet, and which show that we can sufficiently discover a planet with the mass of sub-Earth for typical microlensing events. Therefore, we expect to add the number of low-mass planets in the next-generation microlensing experiments and conclude that our detection condition of the planet can be used as a important criteria for maximal planet detections considering the source type and the photometric accuracy.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.73-81
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• 2016

We report the characterization of a massive (m_p = 3.9±1.4M_jup) microlensing planet (OGLE-2015-BLG-0954Lb) orbiting an M dwarf host (M = 0.33 ± 0.12M_⊙) at a distance toward the Galactic bulge of $0.6^{+0.4}_{-0.2}kpc$, which is extremely nearby by microlensing standards. The planet-host projected separation is a⊥ ~ 1.2AU. The characterization was made possible by the wide-field (4 deg²) high cadence (Γ = 6 hr^–1) monitoring of the Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet), which had two of its three telescopes in commissioning operations at the time of the planetary anomaly. The source crossing time t_* = 16 min is among the shortest ever published. The high-cadence, wide-field observations that are the hallmark of KMTNet are the only way to routinely capture such short crossings. High-cadence resolution of short caustic crossings will preferentially lead to mass and distance measurements for the lens. This is because the short crossing time typically implies a nearby lens, which enables the measurement of additional effects (bright lens and/or microlens parallax). When combined with the measured crossing time, these effects can yield planet/host masses and distance.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.19-19
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• 2000

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.105-105
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• 1999