Advanced Graduate Lecture on Gravitational Microlensing

Gravitational microlensing is a natural cosmic phenomenon which can be employed in studying otherwise undetectable parts of the Universe, e.g. planets, dark matter or black-holes. The lec-ture will focus on the concept of microlensing effect and will show its numerous astrophysical applications, including search for planets, black holes and dark matter. I will present the past, present and future of the field.

- introduce and explain the basic concept of the gravitational microlensing

- present additional effects accompanying the microlensing

- show numerous applications of the microlensing in astrophys-ics

- analyse in detail couple of examples of interesting microlensing events

The outline of the lectures:

1. History and basics math of the gravitational lensing.

2. Microlensing optical depth - includes interview with Dr Kerins from Manchester University

3. How to solve microlensing - part 1

4. How to solve microlensing - part 2

5. Planetary Microlensing - includes interviews of prof. Taka Sumi (Osaka University), prof. Dave Bennett (NASA/Goddard), prof. Dan Maoz (Tel Aviv University)

6.Other planet search methods - includes interview with Dr Si-mon Hodgkin from Cambridge University

7. Dark matter search with microlensing - includes interviews with Dr Vasily Belokurov (University of Cambridge) and Prof. Juan Garcia-Bellido (University of Madrid)

8. Astrometric microlensing and hunt for Black Holes - includes interview with Drs Martin Dominik (University of St. Andrews) and Kailash Sahu (Hubble Space Telescope Institute)

9. Miscellaneous applications of microlensing.

10. Review of microlensing surveys - with interview with Dr Sean Carrey (Spitzer Space mission, Caltech)

11. Serendipitous science with microlensing data

12. Future of microlensing - with interviews with Prof. Andy Gould (Ohio State University) and Dr Rachel Street (Las Cum-bres Observatory)

13. Transient events and contaminants in microlensing searches with Machine Learning.

The students after each lecture can take a test related to the topic of the lecture. The Lecturer is available every week during the planned time for the course for zoom or on-site consultations.

Articles of Paczynski (1996), review of Wambsgans (1998) and articles citing them.

Book: Schneider, Ehlers, Falco: Gravitational lensing.

A student should know the mathematical background and appli-cations of gravitational microlensing in modern astrophysics.

A student should have a deep knowledge and understanding of the methodology used in the field and be able to solve prob-lems illustrating discussed topics (WG_01, WG_02, WG_03).

Written exam – a multiple choice test