Harmonic Angular Mapping Method for Binary Microlensing Grid Search

Searching for binary-lens microlensing solutions is computationally demanding because of the complex parameter space and the large number of trial models required. We present an algorithm that accelerates binary-lens grid searches by expanding the angular dependence of precomputed magnification maps in Fourier modes. By contracting the observation-dependent weighted sums in Fourier space, the $χ^2$ values for all trial source-trajectory angles can be evaluated efficiently using inverse fast Fourier transforms (FFTs), avoiding repeated calculations over individual observations. We tested the method on 200 Roman-like synthetic binary-lens events. For 166 events (83%), the recovered fits agreed with Levenberg--Marquardt fits initialized at the injected parameters to within $|Δχ^2|\leq1$. The FFT map scan required an average of 5.05~min per event. For the same discrete search volume, the Fourier angular evaluation was estimated to be approximately 900 times faster than conventional magnification-map sampling. These results demonstrate that the method can efficiently identify useful initial conditions for binary-lens light-curve modeling.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
arXiv (Cornell University)
Published
2026-11-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2611.02326
Primary Topic
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
Type
preprint
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preprint

Harmonic Angular Mapping Method for Binary Microlensing Grid Search

Kansuke Nunota
arXiv (Cornell University)
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
preprint

Harmonic Angular Mapping Method for Binary Microlensing Grid Search

Kansuke Nunota
preprint en

Abstract

Searching for binary-lens microlensing solutions is computationally demanding because of the complex parameter space and the large number of trial models required. We present an algorithm that accelerates binary-lens grid searches by expanding the angular dependence of precomputed magnification maps in Fourier modes. By contracting the observation-dependent weighted sums in Fourier space, the $χ^2$ values for all trial source-trajectory angles can be evaluated efficiently using inverse fast Fourier transforms (FFTs), avoiding repeated calculations over individual observations. We tested the method on 200 Roman-like synthetic binary-lens events. For 166 events (83%), the recovered fits agreed with Levenberg--Marquardt fits initialized at the injected parameters to within $|Δχ^2|\leq1$. The FFT map scan required an average of 5.05~min per event. For the same discrete search volume, the Fourier angular evaluation was estimated to be approximately 900 times faster than conventional magnification-map sampling. These results demonstrate that the method can efficiently identify useful initial conditions for binary-lens light-curve modeling.

arXiv (Cornell University)
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
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