Gravitational microlensing: two aspects for the analysis

Liudmyla Berdina

The paper is dedicated to investigation of the microlensing phenomenon, which is an important constituent in studying and interpreting transient events in gravitationally lensed quasars. Microlensing events contain valuable information about the masses and velocities of compact objects populating the lensing galaxies, and allow us to measure the angular dimensions of remote quasars with a resolution unachievable with any other methods. In the present paper we describe an analytical method that allows accounting for the effect on the observed brightness of quasar macroimages of the microlens position along the quasar-lens-observer line of sight. On the other hand, microlensing may be a disturbing factor in solving some problems, in which case it must be investigated to be properly eliminated. One such case was discussed in the paper and it was shown how it can be done adequately. A simple way to eliminate the microlensing constituent from the light curves of the lensed quasar images with the aim to obtain the unbiased estimates of the time delays in gravitationally lensed quasars was described.

Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 9, 189-193 (2019)

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