The possibility of detecting planets in the Andromeda Galaxy

Largely a theoretical exercise at this point, but still neat to
contemplate:

Title: The possibility of detecting planets in the Andromeda Galaxy
Authors: S.-J. Chung, D. Kim The Angstrom Collaboration: M.J. Darnley, J.P. Duke, A. Gould, C. Han, Y.-B. Jeon, E. Kerins, A. Newsam, B.-G. Park
Comments: total 8 pages, including 8 figures, ApJ, submitted

The Angstrom Project is using a global network of 2m-class
telescopes to conduct a high cadence pixel microlensing survey of
the bulge of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), with the primary aim of
constraining its underlying bulge mass distribution and stellar
mass function. Here we investigate the feasibility of using such a
survey to detect planets in M31. We estimate the efficiency of
detecting signals for events induced by planetary systems as a
function of planet/star mass ratio and separation, source type and
background M31 surface brightness. We find that for planets of a
Jupiter-mass or above that are within the lensing zone (~1--3 AU)
detection is possible above 3\sigma, with detection
efficiencies ~3% for events associated with giant stars, which are
the typical source stars of pixel-lensing surveys. A dramatic
improvement in the efficiency of ~ 40--60% is expected if
follow-up observations on an 8m telescope are made possible by a
real-time alert system.

URL: http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph?papernum=09622

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*Very* interesting, Joseph. These people certainly aren't dreaming small
dreams by any stretch!

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