Science Enabled by the Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey
Abstract:
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will perform its Galactic Exoplanet Survey when it launches in the mid-2020's. With this first space-based microlensing survey, Roman will be sensitive to planets with orbital separations from roughly 1 AU to those unbound from any host star with masses as low as ten percent that of Earth's. The Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey will be similar in scale to the Kepler mission, and will produce statistics on exoplanet demographics vital in improving planet formation models that are otherwise inaccessible. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the Roman Galactic Exoplanet Survey and how it will use microlensing to detect these planets. I will highlight some of the unique insights Roman will give us, including its ability to detect Earth-analog systems and what it can teach us about the presence of free-floating planets in our Galaxy.
