The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) project aims to image the period of planet assembly directly, resolving structures as small as a giant planet's Hill sphere. These images will be required in order to determine the key mechanisms for planet formation at the time when processes of grain growth, protoplanet assembly, magnetic fields, disk/planet dynamical interactions and complex radiative transfer all interact - making some planetary systems habitable and others inhospitable. We will present the overall vision for the PFI concept, focusing on the key technologies and requirements that are needed to achieve the science goals. Based on these key requirements, we will define a cost envelope range for the design and highlight where the largest uncertainties lie at this conceptual stage.
@article{arxiv.1608.00582,
title = {Status of the Planet Formation Imager (PFI) concept},
author = {Michael J. Ireland and John D. Monnier and Stefan Kraus and Andrea Isella and Stefano Minardi and Romain Petrov and Theo ten Brummelaar and John Young and Gautum Vasisht and David Mozurkewich and Stephen Rinehart and Ernest A. Michael and Gerard van Belle and Julien Woillez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.00582},
year = {2016}
}