Campaign 9 of the K2 mission: observational parameters, scientific drivers, and community involvement for a simultaneous space- and ground-based microlensing survey
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
K2's Campaign 9 (K2C9) will conduct a ˜3.7 deg2 survey
toward the Galactic bulge from 2016 April 22 through July 2 that will
leverage the spatial separation between K2 and the Earth to facilitate
measurement of the microlens parallax {π }{{E}} for ≳
170 microlensing events. These will include several that are planetary
in nature as well as many short-timescale microlensing events, which are
potentially indicative of free-floating planets (FFPs). These satellite
parallax measurements will in turn allow for the direct measurement of
the masses of and distances to the lensing systems. In this article we
provide an overview of the K2C9 space- and ground-based microlensing
survey. Specifically, we detail the demographic questions that can be
addressed by this program, including the frequency of FFPs and the
Galactic distribution of exoplanets, the observational parameters of
K2C9, and the array of resources dedicated to concurrent observations.
Finally, we outline the avenues through which the larger community can
become involved, and generally encourage participation in K2C9, which
constitutes an important pathfinding mission and community exercise in
anticipation of WFIRST.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 124401 |
Journal | Publications of the Astrnomical Society of the Pacific (PASP) |
Volume | 128 |
Issue number | 970 |
Number of pages | 22 |
ISSN | 0004-6280 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
ID: 170453351