Predictions for Strong Lens Detections with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

TL;DR

This paper predicts that the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will detect around 17,000 strong gravitational lenses, providing valuable data for dark matter and cosmology studies, despite not being primarily designed for lens detection.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed prediction of strong lens detections for the Roman Space Telescope using the LensPop model, complementing upcoming surveys.

Findings

Approximately 17,000 lenses detectable in the Roman survey

Predicted distributions of redshifts, magnitudes, and magnifications

Roman survey will complement other lensing discovery projects

Abstract

Strong gravitational lensing is an ideal tool for mapping the distribution of dark matter and for testing the values of cosmological parameters. Forthcoming surveys such as Euclid and the Rubin Observatory LSST should increase the number of known strong lensing systems significantly, with for example over 100,000 such systems predicted in the Euclid wide survey. In this short research note we predict that approximately 17,000 strong gravitational lenses will also be detectible in the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope 2000 square degree survey, using the LensPop gravitational lensing model. We present predicted distributions in source and deflector redshifts, magnitudes, and magnifications. Although this survey is not primarily designed as a strong lensing detection experiment, it will still provide a large complementary catalogue to shallower, wider-area forthcoming lensing discovery projects.