Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) Mission and Synergies with LISA and LIGO-Virgo

TL;DR

WFIRST is a NASA space telescope planned for 2024, designed for wide-field infrared surveys, exoplanet imaging, and dark energy studies, with potential for coordinated gravitational wave observations.

Contribution

This paper discusses WFIRST's capabilities and its potential synergies with gravitational wave observatories like LISA and LIGO-Virgo.

Findings

WFIRST will enable galaxy surveys and dark energy measurements.

It will monitor microlensing for exoplanet detection.

WFIRST can observe electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events.

Abstract

The Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) is a NASA space mission in study for launch in 2024. It has a 2.4 m telescope, wide-field IR instrument operating in the 0.7 - 2.0 micron range and an exoplanet imaging coronagraph instrument operating in the 400 - 1000 nm range. The observatory will perform galaxy surveys over thousands of square degrees to J=27 AB for dark energy weak lensing and baryon acoustic oscillation measurements and will monitor a few square degrees for dark energy SN Ia studies. It will perform microlensing observations of the galactic bulge for an exoplanet census and direct imaging observations of nearby exoplanets with a pathfinder coronagraph. The mission will have a robust and well-funded guest observer program for 25% of the observing time. WFIRST will be a powerful tool for time domain astronomy and for coordinated observations with gravitational wave experiments. Gravitational wave events produced by mergers of nearby binary neutron stars (LIGO-Virgo) or extragalactic supermassive black hole binaries (LISA) will produce electromagnetic radiation that WFIRST can observe.