Transiting Planets in the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey

Transiting Planets in the Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey

Program ID	19079
Science Category	Exoplanets & Exoplanet Formation
Program Type	Analysis
Category	Large
Principal Investigator	Robert Wilson
PI Institution	University of Maryland College Park
Co-Investigators	Elisa Quintana (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) Alison Duck (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) Nestor Espinoza (Space Telescope Science Institute / STScI) Kelsey Hoffman (SETI Institute) Eamonn Kerins (University of Manchester) Jorge Martinez-Palomera (University of Maryland Baltimore County) Susan Mullally (Space Telescope Science Institute / STScI) Matthew Penny (Louisiana State University) Jason Rowe (Bishop's University) David Ciardi (California Institute of Technology / IPAC) Jessie Christiansen (California Institute of Technology / IPAC) Scott Gaudi (Ohio State University)
Abstract	The Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey (GBTDS) will deliver hundreds of millions of near-infrared light curves spanning diverse Galactic stellar populations. Simulations predict these data will yield approximately 100,000 transiting exoplanets, establishing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as the most prolific planet-hunting observatory in history. The proposed work would enable the community to fully realize this potential through rapidly-delivered, uniformly generated, and statistically robust data products. Our work plan consists of two primary efforts. First, following each high-cadence season, we will search up to 100 million light curves for sources with F146<22 and deliver data releases within approximately three months of the season ending. These releases will include high-quality planet candidate catalogs, stellar parameters for all analyzed stars, and a supplementary catalog of systems with modeled secondary eclipses and phase curves, enabling rapid data access to the scientific community. Second, after the third high-cadence season, we will perform a uniform analysis across the full two-year dataset and produce a final data release with the complete suite of products required for performing reproducible exoplanet demographics studies. These include measurements of our pipeline detection efficiency, catalog false alarm rates from instrumental systematics and stellar variability, and our pipeline's rejection efficiency for astrophysical false positives. By providing a centralized, well-characterized planet candidate catalog and data products needed for large scale statistical analysis, this effort will maximize scientific return while avoiding the computational cost and inconsistency of several independent large-scale transit searches.