All the strong lenses in Roman HLWAS
| Program ID | 19045 |
|---|---|
| Science Category | Large Scale Structure of the Universe |
| Program Type | Analysis |
| Category | Medium |
| Principal Investigator | Simon Birrer |
| PI Institution | State University of New York, Stony Brook |
| Co-Investigators |
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| Abstract | The Roman Space telescope, with its resolution, depth, and survey area, is THE unique instrument for capturing and quantifying strong gravitational lensing phenomena. HLWAS alone is expected to capture ~100'000 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses with Einstein radii >0.2". Roman will enable the same types of analyses with comparable resolution and depth, using a sample size 100 times larger than current state-of-the-art analyses. With the increased sample size and precision, the need to understand the strong lensing selection function grows, becoming a key systematic uncertainty. We propose a comprehensive, robust gravitational lens-finding program for the Roman HLWAS. We aim to identify all discoverable strong gravitational lenses, provide initial lens models, measure the photometry of the deflector and source galaxies, and characterize the selection function of the strong-lens samples. We will do so by providing an end-to-end simulation and validation pipeline, along with data-informed training. Lastly, using the produced catalog, we will perform a tomographic analysis of the ratios of Einstein radii across different lens and source planes to constrain the dark energy equation of state parameter, w, to a precision of $\sigma(w)\sim$0.05–0.1, competitive with current Stage-IV probes when combined with external priors. |