Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment. OGLE 2000-BUL-43: A Spectacular Ongoing Parallax Microlensing Event. Difference Image Analysis

Abstract

We present the photometry and theoretical models for a Galactic bulge microlensing event OGLE-2000-BUL-43. The event is very bright with I=13.54 mag, and has a very long time scale, t_E=156 days. The long time scale and its light curve deviation from the standard shape strongly suggest that it may be affected by the parallax effect. We show that OGLE-2000-BUL-43 is the first discovered microlensing event, in which the parallax distortion is observed over a period of 2 years. Difference Image Analysis (DIA) using the PSF matching algorithm of Alard & Lupton enabled photometry accurate to 0.5%. All photometry obtained with DIA is available electronically. Our analysis indicates that the viewing condition from a location near Jupiter will be optimal and can lead to magnifications ~ 50 around January 31, 2001. These features offer a great promise for resolving the source (a K giant) and breaking the degeneracy between the lens parameters including the mass of the lens, if the event is observed with the imaging camera on the Cassini space probe.