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# Rate of Caustic-crossing Microlensing Events in Stellar Binary Lenses with Significant Orbital Motion

## Details

**Authors** Murlidhar et al.

**Year** 2026

**Publisher** The Astrophysical Journal

**Discipline** Astronomy

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae8d0c) 
10.3847/1538-4357/ae8d0c

## In authors' words

### What they found (results)

Modeling ~2,800 synthetic binary-lens microlensing events, the study finds orbital motion boosts the caustic-crossing cross section up to 4x for face-on circular orbits but decreases it for highly inclined orbits, while the population-averaged effect is a negligible ~0.1% increase.

## Commentary

### In short

A binary system's caustics are an emergent whole-system property that neither lens alone produces, and a caustic crossing is itself a sharp boundary event; what is large at the level of an individual system's parts washes out at the level of the aggregate whole population.

**Patterns it shows** D, S

**Added** 2026-08-25

**How to cite this** Murlidhar et al. (2026). Rate of Caustic-crossing Microlensing Events in Stellar Binary Lenses with Significant Orbital Motion. The Astrophysical Journal.