Monnier, JD, Ireland, M, Kraus, S et al. (76 more authors) (2018) Planet formation imager: Project update. In: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2018, Austin, Texas, United States, 10-15 Jun 2018, Austin, Texas, USA. Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers ISBN 9781510619555
Abstract
The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) is a near- and mid-infrared interferometer project with the driving science goal of imaging directly the key stages of planet formation, including the young proto-planets themselves. Here, we will present an update on the work of the Science Working Group (SWG), including new simulations of dust structures during the assembly phase of planet formation and quantitative detection efficiencies for accreting and non-accreting young exoplanets as a function of mass and age. We use these results to motivate two reference PFI designs consisting of a) twelve 3m telescopes with a maximum baseline of 1.2km focused on young exoplanet imaging and b) twelve 8m telescopes optimized for a wider range of young exoplanets and protoplanetary disk imaging out to the 150K H2O ice line. Armed with 4 x 8m telescopes, the ESO/VLTI can already detect young exoplanets in principle and projects such as MATISSE, Hi-5 and Heimdallr are important PFI pathfinders to make this possible. We also discuss the state of technology development needed to make PFI more affordable, including progress towards new designs for inexpensive, small field-of-view, large aperture telescopes and prospects for Cubesat-based space interferometry.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 SPIE. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Astrophysics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 11 Jun 2019 12:49 |
Last Modified: | 13 Jun 2019 06:57 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers |
Identification Number: | 10.1117/12.2312683 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:147078 |