Limiting magnitude for Dome C optical interferometers

This paper discusses the potential performances of interferometers at the Dome C site in the Antarctic. The work is focussed on the limiting performances for fringe tracking, considering different fringe trackers architectures. The fringe tracking limiting magnitude is combined with estimates of the isopistonic angle at Dome C to evaluate the possibilities of off axis fringe tracking. The first evaluations presented here indicate that the sky coverage with realistic off axis fringe tracking is quite high at Dome C even with modest individual apertures and this could finally the best and decisive advantage of this site for optical interferometry. This might make a Dome C interferometer an unique deep sky very high angular resolution machine.