Bibcode
Gil-Merino, R.; Goicoechea, L. J.; Serra-Ricart, M.; Oscoz, A.; Alcalde, D.; Mediavilla, E.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 322, Issue 2, pp. 397-410.
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4
2001
Citations
15
Refereed citations
13
Description
From optical R-band data of the double quasar QSO 0957+561A,B, we made
two new difference light curves (with an overlap of about 330d between
the time-shifted light curve for the A image and the magnitude-shifted
light curve for the B image). We observed noisy behaviours around the
zero line and no short time-scale events (with a duration of months),
where the term `event' refers to a prominent feature that may be a
result of microlensing or another source of variability. Only one event
lasting two weeks and rising -33mmag was found. Measured constraints on
the possible microlensing variability can be used to obtain information
on the granularity of the dark matter in the main lensing galaxy and the
size of the source. In addition, one can also test the ability of the
observational noise to cause the rms averages and the local features of
the difference signals. We focused on this last issue. The combined
photometries were related to a process consisting of an intrinsic signal
plus a Gaussian observational noise. The intrinsic signal has been
assumed to be either a smooth function (polynomial), a smooth function
plus a stationary noise process, or a correlated stationary process.
Using these three pictures without microlensing, we derived some models
totally consistent with the observations. We finally discussed the
sensitivity of our telescope (at Teide Observatory) to several classes
of microlensing variability.