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Creators/Authors contains: "Mikołajczyk, P J"

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  1. Context.Identifying black holes is essential for our understanding of the development of stars and can reveal novel principles of physics. Gravitational microlensing provides an exceptional opportunity to examine an undetectable population of black holes in the Milky Way. In particular, long-lasting events are likely to be associated with massive lenses, including black holes. Aims.We present an analysis of the Gaia18ajz microlensing event reported by the Gaia Science Alerts system. Gaia18ajz is a long-timescale event exhibiting features indicative of the annual microlensing parallax effect. Our objective is to estimate its lens parameters based on the best-fitting model. Methods.We used photometric data obtained from the Gaia satellite and terrestrial observatories to investigate a variety of microlensing models and calculate the most probable mass and distance to the lens, taking into consideration a Galactic model as a prior. Subsequently, we applied a mass–brightness relation to evaluate the likelihood that the lens is a main sequence star. We also describe theDarkLensCode(DLC), an open-source routine that computes the distribution of probable lens mass, distance, and luminosity employing the Galaxy priors on stellar density and velocity for microlensing events with detected microlensing parallax. Results.We modelled the Gaia18ajz event and found its two possible models, the most probable Einstein timescales for which are 316−30+36days and 299−22+25days. Applying Galaxy priors for stellar density and motion, we calculated a most probable lens mass of 4.9−2.3+5.4 Mlocated at 1.14−0.57+0.75 kpc, and a less probably mass of 11.1−4.7+10.3 Mlocated at 1.31−0.60+0.80 kpc. Our analysis of the blended light suggests that the lens is likely a dark remnant of stellar evolution rather than a main sequence star. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2026
  2. We report the analysis of a planetary microlensing event AT2021uey. The event was observed outside the Galactic bulge and alerted both space-(Gaia) and ground-based (ZTF and ASAS-SN) surveys. From the observed data, we find that the lens system is located at a distance of ∼1 kpc and comprises an M-dwarf host star of about half a solar mass, orbited by a Jupiter-like planet beyond the snowline. The source star could be a metal-poor giant located in the halo according to the spectral analyses and modelling. Hence, AT2021uey is a unique example of the binary-lens event outside the bulge that is offered by a disc-halo lens-source combination. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available May 1, 2026
  3. Abstract We report discovering an exoplanet from following up a microlensing event alerted by Gaia. The event Gaia22dkv is toward a disk source rather than the traditional bulge microlensing fields. Our primary analysis yields a Jovian planet with M p = 0.59 0.05 + 0.15 M J at a projected orbital separation r = 1.4 0.3 + 0.8 au, and the host is a ∼1.1Mturnoff star at ∼1.3 kpc. At r 14 , the host is far brighter than any previously discovered microlensing planet host, opening up the opportunity to test the microlensing model with radial velocity (RV) observations. RV data can be used to measure the planet’s orbital period and eccentricity, and they also enable searching for inner planets of the microlensing cold Jupiter, as expected from the “inner–outer correlation” inferred from Kepler and RV discoveries. Furthermore, we show that Gaia astrometric microlensing will not only allow precise measurements of its angular Einstein radiusθEbut also directly measure the microlens parallax vector and unambiguously break a geometric light-curve degeneracy, leading to the definitive characterization of the lens system. 
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