The Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope (WFIRST) will be capable of delivering precise astrometry for faint sources over the enormous field of view of its main camera, the Wide-Field Imager (WFI). This unprecedented combination will be transformative for the many scientific questions that require precise positions, distances, and velocities of stars. We describe the expectations for the astrometric precision of the WFIRST WFI in different scenarios, illustrate how a broad range of science cases will see significant advances with such data, and identify aspects of WFIRST's design where small adjustments could greatly improve its power as an astrometric instrument.
@article{arxiv.1712.05420,
title = {Astrometry with the Wide-Field InfraRed Space Telescope},
author = {Robyn E. Sanderson and Andrea Bellini and Stefano Casertano and Jessica R. Lu and Peter Melchior and Mattia Libralato and David Bennett and Michael Shao and Jason Rhodes and Sangmo Tony Sohn and Sangeeta Malhotra and Scott Gaudi and S. Michael Fall and Ed Nelan and Puragra Guhathakurta and Jay Anderson and Shirley Ho},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.05420},
year = {2019}
}