2006/08/31 by Gregory Dobler, Charles R. Keeton, Charles Keeton · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational microlensing #Lens (geology) #Light curve #Observable #Physics #Stars #Supernova #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/508769
published as Astrophys.J.653:1391-1399,2006 · 13 pages, emulateapj format; accepted in ApJ; expanded discussion of time delay uncertainties
arxiv created 2006/09/04 · openalex publication_date 2006/12/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Given the number of recently discovered galaxy-galaxy lens systems, we anticipate that a gravitationally lensed supernova will be observed within the next few years. We explore the possibility that stars in the lens galaxy will produce observable microlensing fluctuations in lensed supernova light curves. For typical parameters, we predict that ~70% of lensed SNe will show microlensing fluctuations of >0.5 mag, while ~25% will have fluctuations of >1 mag. Thus, microlensing of lensed supernova will be both ubiquitous and observable. In addition, we show that microlensing fluctuations will complicate measurements of time delays from multiply imaged supernovae: time delays accurate to better than a few days will be difficult to obtain. We also consider prospects for extracting the lens galaxy's stellar mass fraction and mass function from microlensing fluctuations via a new statistical measure, the time-weighted light-curve derivative.