Identification of stellar-mass black hole binaries and the validity of linear orbital motion approximation in microlensing

• Published in: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. 513; no. 4; pp. 5088 - 5096
• Main Authors: Ma, Xiaoyi, Zhu, Wei, Yang, Hongjing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press 24.05.2022
• Subjects: gravitational lensing: micro; methods: data analysis

ABSTRACT Gravitational microlensing is unique in detecting binary black (BH) holes with wide (a few au) separations. Models predict that about 1 per cent of microlensing binaries should be due to binary BHs, and yet zero has been robustly identified. Using simulated events with binary BH lenses, we...