Fiber-based heterodyne infrared interferometry: an instrumentation study platform on the way to the proposed Infrared Planet Formation Imager

The planet formation imager

“…After the 2014 SPIE meeting where the PFI project was introduced, a Science Working Group (SWG; headed by Stefan Kraus) and a Technical Working Group (TWG; headed first by David Buscher, and now Michael Ireland) were formed involving around one hundred astronomers around the world. Based on the early top-level science requirements first outlined in 2014, the 2016 SPIE meeting in Edinburgh saw even more contributions which explored technical solutions to achieve these science goals [17,14,12,16,19,3,21]. For instance, a mid-infrared wavelength range was chosen over mm-wave or near-infrared to access the most diverse aspects of planet formation in the "warm dust" zone.…”

“…For instance, a mid-infrared wavelength range was chosen over mm-wave or near-infrared to access the most diverse aspects of planet formation in the "warm dust" zone. We also seriously explored a new heterodyne interferometer concept using mid-IR laser combs [11,3], although our current baseline array now favors direct detection method to allow L/M band wavelengths which are key to detect young protoplanets themselves. The infrared surface brightness sensitivity is mostly determined by the size of the individual apertures and not the number of telescopes -this pushed the design towards large-area unit telescopes which drives the cost.…”

Planet formation imager: project update

“…The PFI SWG and TWG have published a large number of articles in SPIE, outlining both the science case 2, 5 and possible technical implementations of PFI. 1,3,4,[6][7][8][9][10] This year there are about 13 contributions directly related to PFI: In addition to this work, the PFI TWG will write at least one paper in the planned Science White Book to define a baseline PFI architecture to reference in the science chapters.…”

“…Various scientific and technology aspects of PFI have been explored already in a series of papers first at the 2014 SPIE [1][2][3] and then at the 2016 SPIE. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] More information on the PFI Project can be found at the project website http: //planetformationimager.org.…”