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Searching for Gravitational Self-Lensing Binaries with the Zwicky Transient Facility

Presentation #116.116 in the session Stellar/Compact Objects.

Published onJul 01, 2023
Searching for Gravitational Self-Lensing Binaries with the Zwicky Transient Facility

Binary systems containing a compact object may exhibit periodic brightening episodes due to gravitational lensing of the nondegenerate companion by the compact object as it transits. Such self-lensing systems provide a new means of discovering noninteracting compact binaries, providing mass measurements as well as constraints on the formation and evolution of compact objects. We present early results from a systematic search for self-lensing signatures in Galactic stellar-mass binaries using data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). Thanks to its extensive optical variability coverage of the Northern Hemisphere sky, ZTF provides an ideal dataset for this search; population synthesis suggests that thousands of self-lensing systems may be detectable. ZTF’s sparse cadence and ground-based photometric precision pose challenges to discovery; we outline the potential for new search approaches.

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