Paper: astro-ph/0509622
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 09:30:53 GMT (261kb)

Title: The possibility of detecting planets in the Andromeda Galaxy

Authors: S.-J. Chung (1), D. Kim (1) The Angstrom Collaboration: M.J. Darnley
(2), J.P. Duke (2), A. Gould (4), C. Han (1), Y.-B. Jeon (3), E. Kerins (2),
A. Newsam (2), B.-G. Park (3) ((1) Chungbuk Natl. Univ., Korea, (2) Liverpool
John Moores University, (3)Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, (4)
OSU)

Categories: astro-ph

Comments: total 8 pages, including 8 figures, ApJ, submitted
\\
The Angstrom Project is using a global network of 2m-class telescopes to
conduct a high cadence pixel microlensing survey of the bulge of the Andromeda
Galaxy (M31), with the primary aim of constraining its underlying bulge mass
distribution and stellar mass function. Here we investigate the feasibility of
using such a survey to detect planets in M31. We estimate the efficiency of
detecting signals for events induced by planetary systems as a function of
planet/star mass ratio and separation, source type and background M31 surface
brightness. We find that for planets of a Jupiter-mass or above that are within
the lensing zone (~1 -3 AU) detection is possible above 3 $\sigma$, with
detection efficiencies ~3% for events associated with giant stars, which are
the typical source stars of pixel-lensing surveys. A dramatic improvement in
the efficiency of ~40 -- 60% is expected if follow-up observations on an 8m
telescope are made possible by a real-time alert system.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509622 , 261kb)