Next-Generation Crowded-Field Stellar Photometry Tool for Roman

A large Wide-Field Science program will develop a next-generation crowded-field stellar photometry tool for Roman. It will support native Roman data formats and pipeline, enabling seamless interoperation with the Roman Research Nexus. Studies of resolved stellar populations are crucial to all four of the community-defined Roman surveys.

Roman will encounter crowding wherever it looks, from the Galactic Plane and Bulge — which will identify more sources than any astrophysics survey in history (~100 billion!) — to the High Latitude Surveys, which will survey many nearby galaxies, dwarf galaxies, and stellar streams.

The photometric measurement approach in the current Roman pipeline will fail to meet the scientific potential of its core surveys for nearby galaxies and the Milky Way disk.

roman telescope, crowded photometry, stellar photometry, wide field, research nexus, resolved populations, galactic bulge, galactic plane, high latitude, milky way