The Roman-Kepler Legacy Survey
| Program ID | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Science Category | Exoplanets & Exoplanet Formation |
| Program Type | GAS |
| Hours | 170.8 |
| Category | Large |
| Principal Investigator | Adam Kraus |
| PI Institution | The Univ. of Texas at Austin |
| Co-Investigators |
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| Abstract | Kepler revolutionized our understanding of the demographics of planetary systems, identifying over 4000 planet candidates and robustly demonstrating the dependence of planet occurrence on stellar mass, metallicity, age, and binarity. Kepler also transformed wide swaths of stellar astrophysics (including gyrochronology, asteroseismology, and stellar structure and evolution) through its photometric precision, duration, cadence, and continuity. However, Kepler's many achievements were only made feasible by also accepting a drastic compromise on spatial resolution. Roman is now poised to eliminate that compromise and unlock a new era of discovery. We propose to map the full Kepler field with Roman/WFI, obtaining high-spatial-resolution imaging of all 200,000 Kepler targets (including 4000 candidate planet hosts and many unconfirmed false positives), multi-color photometry and precise multi-epoch astrometry for every spatially-resolved candidate binary companion to the Kepler targets, and a full census of ~17 million thin/thick disk stars & brown dwarfs spanning 100 deg^2. We will observe the field in Year 1 with three filters spanning Roman's full wavelength range (F062, F129, F213), and then again in Year 3 using F213 to measure proper motions. Our multi-pronged program will address three key science goals: unlocking the demographics of planets in binary star systems, maximizing the impact of Kepler's full bounty of planets, and exploiting Kepler+Roman as a joint stellar-astrophysics powerhouse. We will pursue multiple planned investigations under each goal while also enabling a multitude of future research programs by the community. In summary, our survey will enhance the field's premier exoplanet demographic sample and explore wide swath of stellar astrophysics, while also mapping our Milky Way's stellar population in a mid-galactic-latitude complement to the Core Community Surveys and establishing a lasting Legacy dataset for the entire community. |
| Summary of Observations | We will map the full area observed by the Kepler Space Telescope (97.1 deg^2; 378 WFI tiles), covering each of Kepler's 21 modules with a separate 3x6 tile mosaic (with 2.54% overlap between tiles) and using LINEGAP2_1 gap-filling dithers plus SUBC2 sub-pixel dithers. We do not cover Kepler's intra-module gaps or its guiding modules. This yields 98.65% coverage (70.7% in both dithers) for Kepler's active science pixels. The Kepler field is near the North Ecliptic Pole, and even with rotation restrictions (matching Kepler module orientations), it is schedulable in four one-month windows per year. The Roman-Kepler Survey can therefore flexibly schedule between the Core Community Surveys. We will observe with three filters (F062, F129, F213) to maximize sensitivity for very red bound companions and very blue field interlopers at the survey limit, while also obtaining a second detection in F129 for nearly all such sources. We will use the IM_6_66 MA table to maximize mapping speed. We also will obtain a second epoch (at least two years later) in F213 to further test the association of candidate (faint, red) binary companions based on common proper motion and to measure orbital motion for bound binary companions. We therefore will obtain four exposures of each tile in each filter/epoch, totaling 4.4 minutes of exposure time in F062+F129 and 8 exposures + 8.8 minutes in F213 (spread over two epochs). This strategy is optimized to balance total charged time against survey area, filter diversity, sub-pixel sampling, and depth. The total charged observing time reported by the APT is 170.8 hours. |
| Status of Observations | https://www.stsci.edu/roman-program-info/program/?program=2004 |