Pipeline to find Roman's faintest dwarf galaxies

PI Mutlu-Pakdil of Dartmouth College has proposed a Wide Field Science program to develop a Roman dwarf galaxy pipeline. The project has two main goals: create a large set of simulated dwarfs to forecast Roman’s scientific output and optimize survey strategies, and deliver an automated dwarf detection algorithm to build a statistically significant sample of the faintest galaxies.

Roman will enable the discovery and characterization of ultra-faint dwarfs well beyond the Local Group, expanding the accessible volume and increasing the current sample by more than three orders of magnitude. Detecting these systems will require specialized image processing and automated detection algorithms.

The program will produce, test, and deliver software tools to simulate dwarf stellar populations in the Roman bands, produce and analyze simulated Roman images containing realistic model dwarfs, search Roman data sets for the faintest dwarf galaxies, and quantify detection sensitivity and completeness for a given observing plan.

roman telescope, dwarf galaxies, ultra-faint dwarfs, simulated dwarfs, detection algorithm, image processing, survey strategies, stellar populations, completeness, local group