AGILIS: Agile Guided Interferometer for Longbaseline Imaging Synthesis. Demonstration and concepts of reconfigurable optical imaging interferometers
Abstract
Context. In comparison to the radio and sub-millimetric domains, imaging with optical interferometry is still in its infancy. Due to the limited number of telescopes in existing arrays, image generation is a demanding process that relies on time-consuming reconfiguration of the interferometer array and super-synthesis.
Aims: Using single mode optical fibres for the coherent transport of light from the collecting telescopes to the focal plane, a new generation of interferometers optimized for imaging can be designed.
Methods: To support this claim, we report on the successful completion of the `OHANA Iki project: an end-to-end, on-sky demonstration of a two-telescope interferometer, built around near-infrared single mode fibres, carried out as part of the `OHANA project.
Results: Having demonstrated that coherent transport by single-mode fibres is feasible, we explore the concepts, performances, and limitations of a new imaging facility with single mode fibres at its heart: Agile Guided Interferometer for Longbaseline Imaging Synthesis (AGILIS).
Conclusions: AGILIS has the potential of becoming a next generation facility or a precursor to a much larger project like the Planet Formation Imager (PFI).
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- June 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1051/0004-6361/201730500
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1703.03919
- Bibcode:
- 2017A&A...602A.116W
- Keywords:
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- instrumentation: interferometers;
- techniques: interferometric;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 16 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, accepted in A&