Image Simulations of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for Studies of the Roman Supernova Survey

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Roman) will yield generation-defining measurements of dark energy through multiple probes, including Type Ia Supernovae (SNIa). To improve decisions on survey strategy and in order to prepare for the survey, we create the first simulations of realistic Roman images that include fake supernovae injected as point sources on the images. This work combines work done on Roman simulations for weak lensing studies as well as catalog-level simulations of supernova samples that will be discovered by Roman. Overall, we create a time-series of images over two years, covering an area of 5 square degrees, with >3000 injected SNe. We plan to release these images publicly and include truth catalogs to allow for various studies. We perform first-use analyses on these images in order to measure galaxy-detection efficiency, host-galaxy association biases, and recovery of transient sources after image subtraction. Furthermore, we discuss how the products used for this analysis are tied to a number of other survey-optimization questions for the Roman SN survey.

Speaker: Dan Scolnic (Duke University)

The Roman Lecture Series is a monthly virtual lecture series focused on the scientific capabilities and technology of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, organized by Roman Mission partners.