A Cold neptune-mass planet OGLE-2007-BLG-368Lb: Cold neptunes are common

We present the discovery of a Neptune-mass planet OGLE-2007-BLG-368Lb with a planet-star mass ratio of q = [9.5 2.1] × 10-5 via gravitational microlensing. The planetary deviation was detected in real-time thanks to the high cadence of the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics survey, real-time light-curve monitoring and intensive follow-up observations. A Bayesian analysis returns the stellar mass and distance at Ml = 0.64+0.21-0.26 M· and Dl = 5.9 +0.9-1.4 kpc, respectively, so the mass and separation of the planet are Mp = 20+7-8 M ⊕ and a = 3.3+1.4-0.8AU, respectively. This discovery adds another cold Neptune-mass planet to the planetary sample discovered by microlensing, which now comprises four cold Neptune/super-Earths, five gas giant planets, and another sub-Saturn mass planet whose nature is unclear. The discovery of these 10 cold exoplanets by the microlensing method implies that the mass ratio function of cold exoplanets scales as dN pl/dlog qαq -0.70.2 with a 95% confidence level upper limit of n < -0.35 (where dN pl/dlog qαqn ). As microlensing is most sensitive to planets beyond the snow-line, this implies that Neptune-mass planets are at least three times more common than Jupiters in this region at the 95% confidence level. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..