Logo image
Back
The WFIRST Exoplanet Microlensing Survey
Preprint   Open access

The WFIRST Exoplanet Microlensing Survey

David P Bennett, Rachel Akeson, Jay Anderson, Lee Armus, Etienne Bachelet, Vanessa Bailey, Thomas Barclay, Richard Barry, Jean-Phillipe Beaulieu, Andrea Belini, …
ArXiv.org
Cornell University
03/26/2018
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1803.08564
url
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1803.08564View
Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

The Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) was the top ranked large space mission in the 2010 New Worlds, New Horizons decadal survey, and it was formed by merging the science programs of 3 different mission concepts, including the Microlensing Planet Finder (MPF) concept (Bennett \etal\ 2010). The WFIRST science program (Spergel \etal\ 2015) consists of a general observer program, a wavefront controlled technology program, and two targeted science programs: a program to study dark energy, and a statistical census of exoplanets with a microlensing survey, which uses nearly one quarter of WFIRST's observing time in the current design reference mission. The New Worlds, New Horizons (decadal survey) midterm assessment summarizes the science case for the WFIRST exoplanet microlensing survey with this statement: "WFIRST's microlensing census of planets beyond 1 AU will perfectly complement Kepler's census of compact systems, and WFIRST will also be able to detect free-floating planets unbound from their parent stars\rlap."
Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Details

Metrics

5 Record Views
Logo image