First Light for the GRAVITY+ Adaptive Optics: Extreme Adaptive Optics for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer
Abstract
GRAVITY+ improves by orders of magnitude the sensitivity, sky-coverage and contrast of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). A central part of this project is the development of Gravity Plus Adaptive Optics (GPAO), a dedicated high-order and laser-guide star Adaptive Optics (AO) system for VLTI. GPAO consists of four state-of-the-art AO systems equipping all 8m-class Unit Telescopes (UTs) for the wavefront correction of the VLTI instruments. It offers both visible and infrared Natural Guide Star (NGS) and Laser Guide Star (LGS) operations. The paper presents the design, operations and performances of GPAO. We illustrate the improvement brought by GPAO with interferometric observations obtained during the commissioning of the NGS mode end-2024. These science results include the first optical interferometry observations of a redshift quasar, the spectroscopy of a cool brown-dwarf with magnitude , the first observations of a Class I young star with GRAVITY, and the first sub-micro arcsecond differential astrometry in the optical. Together with the entire GRAVITY+ project, the implementation of GPAO is a true paradigm shift for observing the optical Universe at very high angular resolution.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2509.21431,
title = {First Light for the GRAVITY+ Adaptive Optics: Extreme Adaptive Optics for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer},
author = {GRAVITY+ Collaboration and : and F. Allouche and C. Bailet and M. Benisty and A. Berdeu and J. -P. Berger and P. Berio and A. Bigioli and C. Blanchard and O. Boebion and H. Bonnet and G. Bourdarot and P. Bourget and W. Brandner and J. Brulé and P. Burgos and M. Carbillet and C. Correia and B. Courtney Barrer and S. Curaba and R. Davies and D. Defrère and A. Delboulbé and F. Delplancke and R. Dembet and A. Drescher and N. Dubost and A. Eckart and C. Édouard and F. Eisenhauer and L. Esteras Otal and M. Fabricius and H. Feuchtgruber and P. Fédou and G. Finger and N. M. Förster Schreiber and R. Frahm and E. Garcia and P. Garcia and R. Garcia Lopez and R. Genzel and J. P. Gil and S. Gillessen and T. Gomes and F. Gonté and V. Gopinath and C. Gouvret and J. Graf and P. Guajardo and S. Guieu and W. Hackenberg and M. Hartl and X. Haubois and F. Haußmann and T. Henning and P. Hibon and S. Hönig and M. Horrobin and M. Houllé and N. Hubin and I. Ibn Taieb and L. Jochum and L. Jocou and A. Jost and J. Kammerer and L. Karl and A. Kaufer and P. Kern and P. Kervella and J. Kolb and H. Korhonen and L. Kreidberg and P. Krempl and S. Lacour and S. Lagarde and O. Lai and V. Lapeyrère and R. Laugier and V. Leal and J. -B. Le Bouquin and J. Leftley and P. Léna and B. Lopez and D. Lutz and Y. Magnard and F. Mang and A. Marcotto and D. Maurel and A. Mérand and F. Millour and M. Montarges and N. More and N. Morujão and T. Moulin and H. Nowacki and M. Nowak and S. Oberti and T. Ott and L. Pallanca and F. Patru and T. Paumard and K. Perraut and G. Perrin and P. O. Petrucci and R. Petrov and O. Pfuhl and N. Pourré and S. Rabien and C. Rau and M. Riquelme and S. Robbe-Dubois and S. Rochat and M. Salman and J. Sánchez-Bermúdez and J. Schubert and J. Scigliuto and P. Shchekaturov and N. Schuhler and J. Shangguan and T. Shimizu and S. Scheithauer and C. Soenke and F. Soulez and E. Stadler and J. Stadler and C. Straubmeier and E. Sturm and M. Subroweit and C. Sykes and L. J. Tacconi and K. R. W. Tristram and S. Uysal and S. von Fellenberg and F. Widmann and E. Wieprecht and E. Wiezorrek and J. Woillez and S. Yazici and G. Zins},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.21431},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Accepted in A&A