nikki wrote:Question for Nereid.
Why are Gravitational Micro Lensings so unpopular? I'll quote from B. Scott Gaudi 2007:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1614v1
“I don’t understand. You’re looking for planets you can’t
see around stars you can’t see.” – Debra Fischer, c. 2000
“Microlensing is a cult.” – Dave Koerner, c. 2000
But not just exoplanets, also BD, MS. WD, NS and BH research with GML!
GML's are lovely window to reality!
I'm not sure why this is a question for Nereid, rather than any other registered user - would you mind elaborating nikki?
In any case, the second paragraph of that paper begins: "
It is now seven years later, and the landscape and perception of microlensing
planet searches has changed dramatically." And the rest of the paper includes a sketch of very rosy prospects for microlensing exoplanet discovery and research. Why only exoplanets? Well, the title of the paper gives a clue:
Microlensing Searches for Planets: Results and Future Prospects.
FWIW (for what it's worth), here are some of the recent non-exoplanet papers from
OGLE (links are to arXiv preprints):
The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. Period-Luminosity Relations of Variable Red Giant Stars
The Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. Miras and Semiregular Variables in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Note that these two papers do not use any microlensing events, but rather mine the data from the repeated coverage of the observed fields.
Microlensing of Relativistic Knots in the Quasar HE1104-1805
Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. OGLE-1999-BUL-32: the Longest Ever Microlensing Event -- Evidence for a Stellar Mass Black Hole?
No doubt a similarly interesting list of papers could be compiled, from other microlensing projects (e.g.
MOA)