20 years of photometric microlensing

Of particular interest is DR2 5918299904067162240 (WISE J175839.20-583931.6), magnitude G=14.9, which will lens a G=13.9 background star in early 2030, with a median 23% net magnification. Other pairs are typically fainter, hampering characterisation of the lens (if the lens is faint) or the ability to accurately measure the magnification (if the source is much fainter than the lens). Of timely interest is DR2 4116504399886241792 (2MASS J17392440-2327071), which will lens a background star in July 2020, albeit with weak net magnification (0.03%).

Median magnifications for the other 5 high-probability events range from 0.3% to 5.3%. The Einstein radii for these lenses are 1-10 times the radius of the habitable zone, allowing these lensing events to pick out cold planets around the ice line, and filling a gap between transit and current microlensing detections of planets around very low-mass stars. We provide a catalogue of the predicted events to aid future characterisation efforts.

Current limitations include a lack of many high-proper motion objects in Gaia DR2 and often large uncertainties on the proper motions of the background sources (or only 2-parameter solutions). Both of these deficiencies will be rectified with Gaia DR3 in 2020. Further characterisation of the lenses is also warranted to better constrain their masses and predict the photometric magnifications.