OMEGA Project: Microlensing across the whole sky

Rachel Street  ✧  Las Cumbres Observatory, CA, USA

Thanks to technological improvements in telescope design and data processing, it is now possible for deep, wide-field and high spatial resolution surveys such as ZTF, and ultimately the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, to monitor hundreds of square degrees every night.

These surveys are capable of discovering microlensing events in a much wider range of stellar environments than could previously be explored, paving the way to investigate low-mass star, brown dwarf, and planet populations in new regions of the galaxy, as well as probing the populations of isolated black holes. However, they generally provide lower-cadence survey data than traditional microlensing surveys, posing challenges for event identification and follow-up.

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