Berlin 2005 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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GR: Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 15: Experimentelle Tests

GR 15.1: Vortrag

Dienstag, 8. März 2005, 14:00–14:15, TU BH262

Will gravity reveal other worlds? — •Martin Dominik — University of St Andrews, School of Physics & Astronomy, North Haugh, St Andrews, KY16 9SS, United Kingdom

The deflection of light originating from stars in the Galactic Bulge caused by the gravitational field of a foreground star surrounded by a planetary system yields an observable brightening which can reveal planets with masses as low as Earth. Unlike any other technique used in the hunt for extra-solar planets, this effect, known as ’microlensing’, probes planetary systems that are similar to our own around the most common types of stars at galactic distances. Currently, it is the only technique able to pick up a signal of a planet that may harbour life, while a Jupiter-like planet has already been detected. The successful operation of ground-based telescope networks such as PLANET (Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) has demonstrated the feasibility of nearly-continuous round-the-clock high-precision photometric monitoring with on-line data reduction. The sensitivity of this campaign was reflected in the provision of the first significant abundance limits for planets around M dwarfs. The strongly enhanced capabilities of a UK-operated 2m-robotic-telescope network which is under construction will allow the discovery of planets on an industrial scale, including a few Earth-mass planets within five years of operation. However, a proper characterization of such ’other worlds’ would require the deployment of a space-based microlensing mission.