Related papers: First results from fringe tracking with the PRIMA …
The Fringe Sensor Unit (FSU) is the central element of the Phase Referenced Imaging and Micro-arcsecond Astrometry (PRIMA) dual-feed facility and provides fringe sensing for all observation modes, comprising off-axis fringe tracking, phase…
Measurement of interferometric parameters values is affected by phase disturbance due especially to atmospheric turbulences. Algorithms of fringe sensing, aimed at fringe parameters identification, are based on interferometric models that…
Context: A turbulent atmosphere causes atmospheric piston variations leading to rapid changes in the optical path difference of an interferometer, which causes correlated flux losses. This leads to decreased sensitivity and accuracy in the…
At the Very Large Telescope Interferometer, the purpose of the fringe-tracker FINITO is to stabilize the optical path differences between the beams, allowing longer integration times on the scientific instruments AMBER and MIDI. Our goal is…
In a few years, the second generation instruments of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) will routinely provide observations with 4 to 6 telescopes simultaneously. To reach their ultimate performance, they will need a fringe…
In the summer of 2011, the first on-sky astrometric commissioning of PRIMA-Astrometry delivered a performance of 3 m'' for a 10 '' separation on bright objects, orders of magnitude away from its exoplanet requirement of 50 {\mu}'' ~ 20…
Context. With the arrival of the next generation of ground-based imaging interferometers combining from 4 to possibly 6 telescopes simultaneously, there is also a strong need for a new generation of fringe trackers able to cophase such…
Fringe tracking in interferometers is typically analyzed with the implicit assumption that there is a single phase associated with each telescope in the array. If the telescopes have apertures significantly larger than r0 and only partial…
The Phase-Referenced Imaging and Micro-arcsecond Astrometry (PRIMA) facility is scheduled for installation in the Very Large Telescope Interferometer observatory in Paranal, Chile, in the second half of 2008. Its goal is to provide…
The GRAVITY instrument has been commissioned on the VLTI during 2016 and is now available to the astronomical community. It is the first optical interferometer capable of observing sources as faint as magnitude 19 in K-band. This is…
Interest in the study of magnetic fields and the properties of interstellar dust, explored through increasingly capable far-IR/submillimeter polarimetry, along with maturing detector technology, have set the stage for a transformative leap…
The implementation of the simultaneous combination of several telescopes (from four to eight) available at Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) will allow the new generation interferometric instrumentation to achieve interferometric…
Since April 2011, realtime fringe tracking data are recorded simultaneously with data from the VLTI/AMBER interferometric beam combiner. Not only this offers possibilities to post-process AMBER reduced data to obtain more accurate…
This tutorial gives a general introduction to optical and infrared interferometry, specifically addressing two questions: `Can I use VLTI to observe my favourite object?' and `What will it tell me?' The observables measured by an…
The limiting magnitude is a key issue for optical interferometry. Pairwise fringe trackers based on the integrated optics concepts used for example in GRAVITY seem limited to about K=10.5 with the 8m Unit Telescopes of the VLTI, and there…
The VLTI Spectro Imager project aims to perform imaging with a temporal resolution of 1 night and with a maximum angular resolution of 1 milliarcsecond, making best use of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer capabilities. To fulfill the…
The implementation of fringe tracking for optical interferometers is inevitable when optimal exploitation of the instrumental capacities is desired. Fringe tracking allows continuous fringe observation, considerably increasing the…
Magnetic fields are a fundamental part of the interstellar medium (ISM) and remain a challenge for building a comprehensive understanding of galactic properties. Their study requires far-infrared polarimetric observations, which provide an…
PHASECam is the fringe tracker for the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer (LBTI). It is a near-infrared camera which is used to measure both tip/tilt and fringe phase variations between the two adaptive optics (AO) corrected apertures…
The PRobe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics (PRIMA) is an infrared observatory for the next decade, currently in Phase A, with a 1.8m telescope actively cooled to 4.5K. On board, an infrared camera, PRIMAger, equipped with…