Description:

Speaker 1: Natasha Abrams, Graduate Student, University of California, Berkley

Title: Gravitational Microlensing in the Era of All-Sky Surveys
Abstract: Gravitational microlensing provides a unique opportunity to probe the mass distribution of stars, black holes, binary systems, and other objects in the Milky Way. Historically, microlensing events have been discovered primarily in the Galactic bulge by surveys designed solely for that purpose. As we enter the age of visible all-sky surveys, such as that of the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), Vera C. Rubin Observatory (Rubin), and La Silla Schmidt Southern Survey (LS4), we gain the ability to probe microlensing events throughout the Galaxy. This allows us to analyze galactic structure and how the stellar and black hole mass functions vary across the Galaxy. I will present our analysis of optimal survey strategies in Rubin, our pipeline to discover microlensing events among a billion other lightcurves in ZTF with applications to LS4, Rubin, and other all-sky surveys, and population simulations to physically interpret survey results. In particular, I will discuss the inclusion of binary systems in PopSyCLE (Population Synthesis for Compact-object Lensing Events). We find that > 50% of our simulated events include a binary lens or source system, so they will be critical for interpreting microlensing results from all-sky surveys. Through this work we have shown that open-access, all-sky surveys will be powerful tools for probing galactic structure, binaries, and black holes through microlensing.

Host: Chang Liu

TBA

Speaker 2: Genevieve Schroeder, Postdoc, Cornell University

Host: Jillian Rastinejad