March 25
The Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey Will Find the Coolest Planets
Speaker: Dr. David Bennett, UMD/GSFC
Abstract: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch this year with 29% of its prime mission observing time allocated to the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) that was designed to search for exoplanets using the gravitational microlensing method. This survey was selected to continue NASA’s statistical census of exoplanets begun by the Kepler mission, which focused on planets orbiting their host stars at separations smaller than 1 AU. The Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey (RGES) will extend this statistical survey from separations from ~1 AU outward to ``infinity”, i.e. free-floating planets that are no longer bound to their host stars. Unlike previous NASA flagship missions, the majority of Roman’s observing time is dedicated to pre-planned surveys, and it is expected that the majority of science will be done with this survey data. I will describe the science expected to come from the RGES program, as well as the challenges presented by such a high quality data set. Only a small fraction of the astronomical community have experience with the analysis of microlensing data. This has inspired the Roman Project to fund the development of educational opportunities, software and analysis products that will enable broad participation in RGES science, and I will describe how astronomers can take advantage of these opportunities to participate in Roman’s exoplanet science.
Host: Prof. Richard Mushotzky