1996/04/01 by Shude Mao, Bohdan Paczyński · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Gravitation #Gravitational lens #Gravitational microlensing #Lens (geology) #Mass distribution #Monte Carlo method #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/178126
19 pages in postscript (four figures included), submitted to ApJ
arxiv created 1996/04/01 · openalex publication_date 1996/12/10 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a simple toy model of the distribution of objects responsible for gravitational microlensing. We use Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate how difficult it is to determine the parameters of the lens mass distribution on the basis of the observed distribution of event timescales. A robust determination requires ~ 100 events, or more, even if the geometry of lens distribution and the lens kinematics are known.