K. Kawasaki

Bio: K. Kawasaki is an academic researcher from Max Planck Society. The author has contributed to research in topics: Gravitational microlensing & Light curve. The author has an hindex of 14, co-authored 27 publications receiving 440 citations. Previous affiliations of K. Kawasaki include Kobe University.

Two new free-floating or wide-orbit planets from microlensing

Abstract: Planet formation theories predict the existence of free-floating planets that have been ejected from their parent systems. Although they emit little or no light, they can be detected during gravitational microlensing events. Microlensing events caused by rogue planets are characterized by very short timescales t E (typically below two days) and small angular Einstein radii θ E (up to several μ as). Here we present the discovery and characterization of two ultra-short microlensing events identified in data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, which may have been caused by free-floating or wide-orbit planets. OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 is one of the shortest events discovered thus far (t E = 0.155 ± 0.005 d, θ E = 2.37 ± 0.10μ as) and was caused by an Earth-mass object in the Galactic disk or a Neptune-mass planet in the Galactic bulge. OGLE-2017-BLG-0560 (t E = 0.905 ± 0.005 d, θ E = 38.7 ± 1.6μ as) was caused by a Jupiter-mass planet in the Galactic disk or a brown dwarf in the bulge. We rule out stellar companions up to a distance of 6.0 and 3.9 au, respectively. We suggest that the lensing objects, whether located on very wide orbits or free-floating, may originate from the same physical mechanism. Although the sample of ultrashort microlensing events is small, these detections are consistent with low-mass wide-orbit or unbound planets being more common than stars in the Milky Way.

Two new free-floating or wide-orbit planets from microlensing

Abstract: Planet formation theories predict the existence of free-floating planets that have been ejected from their parent systems. Although they emit little or no light, they can be detected during gravitational microlensing events. Microlensing events caused by rogue planets are characterized by very short timescales $t_{\rm E}$ (typically below two days) and small angular Einstein radii $\theta_{\rm E}$ (up to several uas). Here we present the discovery and characterization of two ultra-short microlensing events identified in data from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) survey, which may have been caused by free-floating or wide-orbit planets. OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 is one of the shortest events discovered thus far ($t_{\rm E}$=0.155 +/- 0.005 d, $\theta_{\rm E}$=2.37 +/- 0.10 uas) and was caused by an Earth-mass object in the Galactic disk or a Neptune-mass planet in the Galactic bulge. OGLE-2017-BLG-0560 ($t_{\rm E}$=0.905 +/- 0.005 d, $\theta_{\rm E}$=38.7 +/- 1.6 uas) was caused by a Jupiter-mass planet in the Galactic disk or a brown dwarf in the bulge. We rule out stellar companions up to a distance of 6.0 and 3.9 au, respectively. We suggest that the lensing objects, whether located on very wide orbits or free-floating, may originate from the same physical mechanism. Although the sample of ultrashort microlensing events is small, these detections are consistent with low-mass wide-orbit or unbound planets being more common than stars in the Milky Way.

OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb: First Spitzer Bulge Planet Lies Near the Planet/Brown-Dwarf Boundary

Abstract: We report the discovery of OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb, which is likely to be the first Spitzer microlensing planet in the Galactic bulge/bar, an assignation that can be confirmed by two epochs of high-resolution imaging of the combined source-lens baseline object. The planet's mass M_p= 13.4+-0.9 M_J places it right at the deuterium burning limit, i.e., the conventional boundary between "planets" and "brown dwarfs". Its existence raises the question of whether such objects are really "planets" (formed within the disks of their hosts) or "failed stars" (low mass objects formed by gas fragmentation). This question may ultimately be addressed by comparing disk and bulge/bar planets, which is a goal of the Spitzer microlens program. The host is a G dwarf M_host = 0.89+-0.07 M_sun and the planet has a semi-major axis a~2.0 AU. We use Kepler K2 Campaign 9 microlensing data to break the lens-mass degeneracy that generically impacts parallax solutions from Earth-Spitzer observations alone, which is the first successful application of this approach. The microlensing data, derived primarily from near-continuous, ultra-dense survey observations from OGLE, MOA, and three KMTNet telescopes, contain more orbital information than for any previous microlensing planet, but not quite enough to accurately specify the full orbit. However, these data do permit the first rigorous test of microlensing orbital-motion measurements, which are typically derived from data taken over <1% of an orbital period.

An Isolated Microlens Observed from K2, Spitzer and Earth

Abstract: We present the result of microlensing event MOA-2016-BLG-290, which received observations from the two-wheel Kepler (K2), Spitzer, as well as ground-based observatories A joint analysis of data from K2 and the ground leads to two degenerate solutions of the lens mass and distance This degeneracy is effectively broken once the (partial) Spitzer light curve is included Altogether, the lens is found to be an extremely low-mass star located in the Galactic bulge MOA-2016-BLG-290 is the first microlensing event for which we have signals from three well-separated ($\sim1$ AU) locations It demonstrates the power of two-satellite microlensing experiment in reducing the ambiguity of lens properties, as pointed out independently by S Refsdal and A Gould several decades ago

Constraints on Earth-mass primordial black holes from OGLE 5-year microlensing events

Abstract: We constrain the abundance of primordial black holes (PBH) using 2622 microlensing events obtained from 5-years observations of stars in the Galactic bulge by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE). The majority of microlensing events display a single or at least continuous population that has a peak around the light curve timescale ${t}_{\mathrm{E}}\ensuremath{\simeq}20\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{days}$ and a wide distribution over the range ${t}_{\mathrm{E}}\ensuremath{\simeq}[1,300]\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{days}$, while the data also indicates a second population of 6 ultrashort-timescale events in ${t}_{\mathrm{E}}\ensuremath{\simeq}[0.1,0.3]\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{days}$, which are advocated to be due to free-floating planets. We confirm that the main population of OGLE events can be well modeled by microlensing due to brown dwarfs, main sequence stars and stellar remnants (white dwarfs and neutron stars) in the standard Galactic bulge and disk models for their spatial and velocity distributions. Using the dark matter (DM) model for the Milky Way (MW) halo relative to the Galactic bulge/disk models, we obtain the tightest upper bound on the PBH abundance in the mass range ${M}_{\mathrm{PBH}}\ensuremath{\simeq}[{10}^{\ensuremath{-}6},{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}]\text{ }\text{ }{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$ (Earth-Jupiter mass range), if we employ the ``null hypothesis'' that the OGLE data does not contain any PBH microlensing event. More interestingly, we also show that Earth-mass PBHs can well reproduce the 6 ultrashort-timescale events, without the need of free-floating planets, if the mass fraction of PBH to DM is at a per cent level, which is consistent with other constraints such as the microlensing search for Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the longer timescale OGLE events. Our result gives a hint of PBH existence, and can be confirmed or falsified by microlensing search for stars in M31, because M31 is towards the MW halo direction and should therefore contain a much less number of free-floating planets, even if exist, than the direction to the MW center.

Spray cooling and flash evaporation cooling: The current development and application

Abstract: With the increasing power density of electronic chips, large radar, laser diode array and other equipments, the conventional heat dissipation methods are difficult to achieve the desired thermal control requirements increasingly. Spray cooling has attracted widespread attention due to its advantages in high heat flux removal such as less flow rate demand, high heat dissipation capacity, low superheat degree, no temperature overshoot and no contact thermal resistance with the heating surface. As of today, lots of researchers engage in this field and numerous achievements of spray cooling are obtained theoretically and experimentally. In this paper, an overview with spray cooling was completed. The current research progresses of heat transfer mechanisms of spray cooling in the three stages (single-phase regime, two-phase regime and critical heat flux regime) were summarized, and the influence factors, spray characteristics, heating surface characteristics, fluid characteristics and external environment characteristics, were analyzed in detail. The flash evaporation cooling, a special form of spray cooling, was also explored by a number of studies due to its irreplaceable advantage in low pressure environment or in space. Film flash evaporation and droplet flash evaporation significantly improve the cooling capacity of system and utilization of working fluid. In fact, the application of flash evaporation cooling is profound for development and expansion of spray cooling. Additionally, spray cooling system and nozzle were also elaborated in the paper.

Detecting Earth-Mass Planets with Gravitational Microlensing

Abstract: We show that Earth mass planets orbiting stars in the Galactic disk and bulge can be detected by monitoring microlensed stars in the Galactic bulge. The star and its planet act as a binary lens which generates a lightcurve which can differ substantially from the lightcurve due only to the star itself. We show that the planetary signal remains detectable for planetary masses as small as an Earth mass when realistic source star sizes are included in the lightcurve calculation. These planets are detectable if they reside in the ``lensing zone" which is centered between 1 and 4 AU from the lensing star and spans about a factor of 2 in distance. If we require a minimum deviation of 4\% from the standard point-lens microlensing lightcurve, then we find that more than 2\% of all $\mearth$ planets and 10\% of all $10\mearth$ in the lensing zone can be detected. If a third of all lenses have no planets, a third have $1\mearth$ planets and the remaining third have $10\mearth$ planets then we estimate that an aggressive ground based microlensing planet search program could find one earth mass planet and half a dozen $10\mearth$ planets per year.

Planetary System Disruption by Galactic Perturbations to Wide Binary Stars

Abstract: Numerical simulations of a widely separated binary star system demonstrate that planetary systems around one star may often be strongly perturbed by the other star, triggering planetary ejections and increasing the orbital eccentricities of surviving planets. Most stars are found in binary systems, so an understanding of how stellar companions affect planetary dynamics and formation is important for exoplanet research. Previous studies have assumed that stellar companions of more than 1,000 AU ('wide binaries') are inconsequential. This study demonstrates the opposite: external galactic perturbations that are insignificant in tighter binaries drive wide binaries to systematically disrupt planetary systems. The results suggest that although wide binaries eventually truncate their planetary systems, most isolated giant exoplanet systems harbour additional distant, still undetected planets. Nearly half the exoplanets found within binary star systems reside1 in very wide binaries with average stellar separations greater than 1,000 astronomical units (one astronomical unit (au) being the Earth–Sun distance), yet the influence of such distant binary companions on planetary evolution remains largely unstudied. Unlike their tighter counterparts, the stellar orbits of wide binaries continually change under the influence of the Milky Way’s tidal field and impulses from other passing stars. Here we report numerical simulations demonstrating that the variable nature of wide binary star orbits dramatically reshapes the planetary systems they host, typically billions of years after formation. Contrary to previous understanding2, wide binary companions may often strongly perturb planetary systems, triggering planetary ejections and increasing the orbital eccentricities of surviving planets. Although hitherto not recognized, orbits of giant exoplanets within wide binaries are statistically more eccentric than those around isolated stars. Both eccentricity distributions are well reproduced when we assume that isolated stars and wide binaries host similar planetary systems whose outermost giant planets are scattered beyond about 10 au from their parent stars by early internal instabilities. Consequently, our results suggest that although wide binaries eventually remove the most distant planets from many planetary systems, most isolated giant exoplanet systems harbour additional distant, still undetected planets.