A Cold Neptune-Mass Planet OGLE-2007-BLG-368Lb: Cold Neptunes are Common
Version 2 2025-01-15, 00:59Version 2 2025-01-15, 00:59
Version 1 2023-05-17, 02:34Version 1 2023-05-17, 02:34
journal contribution
posted on 2025-01-15, 00:59authored byT Sumi, DP Bennett, IA Bond, A Udalski, V Batista, M Dominik, P Fouque, D Kubas, A Gould, B Macintosh, K Cook, S Dong, L Skuljan, A Cassan, F Abe, CS Botzler, A Fukui, K Furusawa, JB Hearnshaw, Y Itow, K Kamiya, PM Kilmartin, A Korpela, W Lin, CH Ling, K Masuda, Y Matsubara, N Miyake, Y Muraki, M Nagaya, T Nagayama, K Ohnishi, T Okumura, YC Perrott, N Rattenbury, T Saito, T Sako, DJ Sullivan, WL Sweatman, PJ Tristram, PCM Yock, Jean-Philippe BeaulieuJean-Philippe Beaulieu, Andrew ColeAndrew Cole, C Coutures, MF Duran, J Greenhill, F Jablonski, U Marboeuf, E Martioli, E Pedretti, O Pejcha, P Rojo, MD Albrow, S Brilliant, M Bode, DM Bramich, MJ Burgdorf, JAR Caldwell, H Calitz, E Corrales, S Dieters, D Dominis Prester, J Donatowicz, Kym HillKym Hill, M Hoffman, K Horne, UG Jorgensen, N Kains, S Kane, JB Marquette, R Martin, P Meintjes, J Menzies, KR Pollard, KC Sahu, C Snodgrass, I Steele, R Street, Y Tsapras, J Wambsganss, A Williams, M Zub, MK Szymanski, M Kubiak, G Pietrzynski, I Soszynski, O Szewczyk, L Wyrzykowski, K Ulaczyk, W Allen, GW Christie, DL DePoy, BS Gaudi, C Han, J Janczak, CU Lee, J McCormick, F Mallia, B Monard, T Natusch, BG Park, RW Pogge, R Santallo
We present the discovery of a Neptune-mass planet OGLE-2007-BLG-368Lb with a planet Cstar mass ratio of q = [9.5 2.1] 10−5 via gravitational microlensing. The planetary deviation was detected in real-time thanks to the high cadence of the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics survey, real-time light-curve monitoring and intensive follow-up observations. A Bayesian analysis returns the stellar mass and distance at Ml = 0.64+0.21 -0.26M andDl = 5.9+0.9 -1.4 kpc, respectively, so themass and separation of the planet areMp = 20+7 -8M and a = 3.3+1.4 -0.8 AU, respectively. This discovery adds another cold Neptune-mass planet to the planetary sample discovered by microlensing, which now comprises four cold Neptune/super-Earths, five gas giant planets, and another sub- Saturn mass planet whose nature is unclear. The discovery of these 10 cold exoplanets by the microlensing method implies that the mass ratio function of cold exoplanets scales as dNpl/d log q q -0.70.2 with a 95% confidence level upper limit of n < -0.35 (where dNpl/d log q qn). As microlensing is most sensitive to planets beyond the snow-line, this implies that Neptune-mass planets are at least three times more common than Jupiters in this region at the 95% confidence level.