Binary Lenses in OGLE-II 1997-1999 Database. A Preliminary Study

We present 18 binary lens candidates from OGLE-II database for seasons 1997-1999. The candidates have been selected by visual light curves inspection from the subsample of strong transient events; the same procedure gives 215 single lens candidates. Among the double lenses there are 12 cases interpreted as caustic crossing events. We compare the mass ratio and separation distributions obtained for binary lenses with the predictions based on stellar double systems observations. We take into account the selection bias, which causes over-representation of binary lenses of similar mass and separation close to the Einstein radius. There is no strong discrepancy between the expected and observed distributions of the mass ratio or the binary separations. We find two cases of binary lens candidates, SC20_1793 and SC20_3525, with extreme mass ratios, which may suggest presence of planets or brown dwarf companions. Unfortunately, neither case is very strong, as alternative solutions give fits to the data which are only unsubstantially worse. Binary lenses provide a modest contribution to overall optical depth to microlensing.