Recommendations for Early Definition Science with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

TL;DR

This paper recommends early survey strategies for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, emphasizing Galactic plane observations and community-driven ultra-deep surveys to maximize scientific return within initial mission time.

Contribution

It provides specific recommendations for early survey definitions, highlighting the Galactic plane and ultra-deep observations to enhance Roman's scientific impact.

Findings

Galactic plane survey offers broad stakeholder engagement and baseline proper motions.

Early definition of ultra-deep observations is strongly motivated.

Synergies with ground-based surveys like LSST are significant.

Abstract

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman), NASA's next flagship observatory, has significant mission time to be spent on surveys for general astrophysics in addition to its three core community surveys. We considered what types of observations outside the core surveys would most benefit from early definition, given 700 hours of mission time in the first two years of Roman's operation. We recommend that a survey of the Galactic plane be defined early, based on the broad range of stakeholders for such a survey, the added scientific value of a first pass to obtain a baseline for proper motions complementary to Gaia's, and the significant potential synergies with ground-based surveys, notably the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) on Rubin. We also found strong motivation to follow a community definition process for ultra-deep observations with Roman.