Parallax-Shifted Microlensing Events from Ground-Based Observations of the Galactic Bulge

Abstract

The parallax effect in ground-based microlensing (ML) observations consists of a distortion to the standard ML light curve arising from the Earth's orbital motion. In most cases, the resolution in current ML surveys is not accurate enough to observe this effect, but parallax could conceivably be detected with frequent followup observations of ML events in progress. We calculate the expected fraction of events where parallax distortions will be detected by such observations, adopting Galactic models consistent with the observed ML timescale ($t_0$) distributions. We study the dependence of the rates for parallax-shifted events on the sampling frequency and on the photometric precision. For example, we find that for hourly observations with typical photometric errors of 0.01 mag, 6\% of events where the lens is in the bulge, and 31\% of events where the lens is in the disk, (or $\approx 10$\% of events overall) will give rise to a measurable parallax shift at the 95\% confidence level. These fractions may be increased by improved photometric accuracy and increased sampling frequency. Parallax measurements yield the reduced transverse speed, $\tilde{v}$, which gives both the relative transverse speed and lens mass as functions of distance. We give examples of the accuracies with which $\tilde{v}$ may be measured in typical parallax events. Using only the 3 standard ML parameters to fit ML light curves which may be shape-distorted by parallax or blending, can result in incorrect inferred values for these quantities. We find that the inferred timescales from such fits tend to shift the event duration distribution by $\approx 10$\% towards shorter $t_0$ for events with disk lenses, but do not affect bulge lenses. In both cases, the impact-parameter distribution is depressed slightly at the low and high ends.