Lens parameters for Gaia18cbf : a long gravitational microlensing event in the Galactic plane

Abstract

Context: The timescale of a microlensing event scales as a square root of a lens mass. Therefore, long-lasting events are important candidates for massive lenses, including black holes. Aims: Here, we present the analysis of the Gaia18cbf microlensing event reported by the Gaia Science Alerts system. It exhibited a long timescale and features that are common for the annual microlensing parallax effect. We deduce the parameters of the lens based on the derived best fitting model. Methods: We used photometric data collected by the Gaia satellite as well as the follow-up data gathered by the ground-based observatories. We investigated the range of microlensing models and used them to derive the most probable mass and distance to the lens using a Galactic model as a prior. Using known mass-brightness relation we determined how likely it is that the lens is a main-sequence (MS) star. Results: This event is one of the longest ever detected, with the Einstein timescale of tE=491.41+128.31-84.94 days for the best solution and tE=453.74+178.69-105.74 days for the second-best. Assuming Galaxy priors, this translates to the most probable lens mass of ML = 2.65+5.09-1.48 M⊙ and ML = 1.71+3.78-1.06 M⊙, respectively. The limits on the blended light suggest that this event was most likely not caused by a MS star, but rather by a dark remnant of stellar evolution.