Publications
of the
MPIfR
Optical & Infrared
Interferometry Group
A. Quirrenbach, V. Coude du Foresto,
G. Daigne, K.-H. Hofmann, R. Hofmann, M. Lattanzi,
R. Osterbart, R.S. Le Poole, D. Queloz, F. Vakili:
PRIMA: study for a dual-beam instrument for
the VLT interferometer
Proceedings of SPIE conference on Astronomical
Interferometry, 3350, p. 807-817 (1998)
Abstract.
PRIMA is a conceptual study for a single-baseline dual-feed instrument
for the very large telescope interferometer, which is under
construction by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in
Chile. The goals of PRIMA include narrow-angle astrometry with a
precision of 10 (mu) as over an arc of 10 inches, and imaging of faint
sources with the full sensitivity of the 8m telescopes in the VLT
array. Key scientific programs that can be carried out with PRIMA in
imaging mode include observations of active galactic nuclei, the
Galactic Center, stars, and circumstellar matter. Scientific drivers
for the astrometry are searches for planets and low-mass stellar
companions, binary stars, dynamics of clusters, and parallaxes. We list
the main performance requirements for PRIMA, present system
architectures for the dual-beam system, and discuss limitations of the
interferometric field-of-view.