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N. Dalal, K. Griest (UCSD)
Microlensed stars are typically discovered in crowded fields like the Bulge or the LMC. This crowding can affect SIM measurements of astrometric microlensing in several ways, distorting the measured astrometric excusion and enhancing positional errors from photon noise and pointing errors. In this poster we simulate the effects of field stars that are well-resolved, marginally resolved, and unresolved by SIM. We discuss methods by which SIM can correct for these effects. We find that crowding and (long period) binary companions to the target microlensed star should not impede SIM's ability to measure accurately lens masses and distances.
This work was supported in part by the Dept. of Energy under grant DEFG0390ER40546.