A Jovian analogue orbiting a white dwarf star

Studies^1,2 have shown that the remnants of destroyed planets and debris-disk planetesimals can survive the volatile evolution of their host stars into white dwarfs^3,4, but few intact planetary bodies around white dwarfs have been detected^5-8. Simulations predict^9-11 that planets in Jupiter-like orbits around stars of ≲8 M_☉ (solar mass) avoid being destroyed by the strong tidal forces of their stellar host, but as yet, there has been no observational confirmation of such a survivor. Here we report the non-detection of a main-sequence lens star in the microlensing event MOA-2010-BLG-477Lb¹² using near-infrared observations from the Keck Observatory. We determine that this system contains a 0.53 ± 0.11 M_☉ white-dwarf host orbited by a 1.4 ± 0.3 Jupiter-mass planet with a separation on the plane of the sky of 2.8 ± 0.5 astronomical units, which implies a semi-major axis larger than this. This system is evidence that planets around white dwarfs can survive the giant and asymptotic giant phases of their host's evolution, and supports the prediction that more than half of white dwarfs have Jovian planetary companions¹³. Located at approximately 2.0 kiloparsecs towards the centre of our Galaxy, it is likely to represent an analogue to the end stages of the Sun and Jupiter in our own Solar System.

Microlensing Searches for Exoplanets

Gravitational microlensing finds planets through their gravitational influence on the light coming from a more distant background star. The presence of the planet is then inferred from the tell-tale brightness variations of the background star during the lensing event, even if no light is detectable from the planet or the host foreground star. This review covers fundamental theoretical concepts in microlensing, addresses how observations are performed in practice, the challenges of obtaining accurate measurements, and explains how planets reveal themselves in the data. It concludes with a presentation of the most important findings to-date, a description of the method’s strengths and weaknesses, and a discussion of the future prospects of microlensing.

A century of general relativity: astrophysics and cosmology

One hundred years after its birth, general relativity has become a highly successful physical theory in the sense that it has passed a large number of experimental and observational tests and finds extensive application to a wide variety of cosmic phenomena. It remains an active area of research as new tests are on the way, epitomized by the exciting prospect of detecting gravitational waves from merging black holes. General relativity is the essential foundation of the standard model of cosmology and underlies our description of the black holes and neutron stars that are ultimately responsible for the most powerful and dramatic cosmic sources. Its interface with physics on the smallest and largest scales will continue to provide fertile areas of investigation in its next century.

On the general properties of symmetric incomplete Airy beams

We study the general properties of a class of Airy beams symmetric under reflection of the transverse coordinates. Following a recent proposal, their angular spectra depend on the absolute value of the third power of the transverse components of the wave vector. The proposed beams are shown to be described by symmetric superpositions of incomplete Airy special functions. Their angular spectra do not correspond to any of those described by standard catastrophe optics. However, the morphologies of the symmetric beams are similar to some of those already classified within that scheme, differing mainly on the scaling exponents. Finally, the structural stability of three-dimensional symmetric incomplete Airy beams is experimentally probed.

Microlensing detection of extrasolar planets

We review the method of exoplanetary microlensing with a focus on two-body planetary lensing systems. The physical properties of planetary systems can be successfully measured by means of a deep analysis of lightcurves and high-resolution imaging of planetary systems, countering the concern that microlensing cannot determine planetary masses and orbital radii. Ground-based observers have had success in diagnosing properties of multi-planet systems from a few events, but space-based observations will be much more powerful and statistically more complete. Since microlensing is most sensitive to exoplanets beyond the snow line, whose statistics, in turn, allow for testing current planetary formation and evolution theories, we investigate the retrieval of semi-major axis density by a microlensing space-based survey with realistic parameters. Making use of a published statistical method for projected exoplanets quantities (Brown 2011), we find that one year of such a survey might distinguish between simple power-law semi-major axis densities. We conclude by briefly reviewing ground-based results hinting at a high abundance of free-floating planets and describing the potential contribution of space-based missions to understanding the frequency and mass distribution of these intriguing objects, which could help unveil the formation processes of planetary systems.

Studying planet populations with Einstein's blip

Although Einstein originally judged that 'there is no great chance of observing this phenomenon', the 'most curious effect' of the bending of starlight by the gravity of intervening foreground stars--now commonly referred to as 'gravitational microlensing'--has become one of the successfully applied techniques to detect planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, while being quite unlike any other. With more than 400 extra-solar planets known altogether, the discovery of a true sibling of our home planet seems to have become simply a question of time. However, in order to properly understand the origin of Earth, carrying all its various life forms, models of planet formation and orbital evolution need to be brought into agreement with the statistics of the full variety of planets like Earth and unlike Earth. Given the complementarity of the currently applied planet detection techniques, a comprehensive picture will only arise from a combination of their respective findings. Gravitational microlensing favours a range of orbital separations that covers planets whose orbital periods are too long to allow detection by other indirect techniques, but which are still too close to their host star to be detected by means of their emitted or reflected light. Rather than being limited to the Solar neighbourhood, a unique opportunity is provided for inferring a census of planets orbiting stars belonging to two distinct populations within the Milky Way, with a sensitivity not only reaching down to Earth mass, but even below, with ground-based observations. The capabilities of gravitational microlensing extend even to obtaining evidence of a planet orbiting a star in another galaxy.