2nd-4th October, 2023

The first annual (kick-off) meeting for the RGES PIT took place in October 2023 on the campus of The Ohio State University. The 3-day meeting included acquainting all PIT members with each other and the overall leadership, a selection of Roman and microlensing-related science talks, and the establishment of working groups (WGs). Lastly, the overall RGES PIT roadmap was laid out.

The notional goals of the RGES PIT were established to be:

  1. Work with the Roman project office to verify and re-verify the five Level-1 Microlensing Science Requirements on a periodic basis using the most up-to-date Roman observatory parameters, as well as updated survey simulation software.

  2. Develop and make publicly available a sophisticated, well-vetted, automated and efficient data reduction and analysis pipeline. This pipeline will have three modules, corresponding to three Level-2 Goals:

    • Photometry-astrometry data reduction pipeline.

    • Event detection and characterization pipeline.

    • Occurrence rate pipeline.

  3. Develop and make publicly-available simulations of the RGES survey and use these to verify the science requirements, test the data reduction and analysis pipeline, and optimize the survey strategy of the GBTDS.

  4. Expand the scientific capacity and impact of the US microlensing community while simultaneously increasing its inclusiveness, diversity, equity, and accessibility, and to develop outreach and citizen science activities that provide entryways for the public to engage with the RGES science and the Roman mission.