1. Objectives
The participants will take action to ensure that Europe will play a leading
role in the development of optical interferometry over the next decade and
to enable European astronomers to fully exploit the scientific potential of
existing and planned large facilities. Detailed information on the JRA is
available at http://eii-jra4.ujf-grenoble.fr/
2. Activity description and implementation plan
The near-term scientific productivity of interferometers is limited mainly
by: (1) the inherent limitations of the existing focal-plane instrumentation
and the difficulties of phasing and co-phasing the elements of interferometric
arrays, (2) the lack of adequate algorithms and tools for the analysis and
interpretation of the data, (3) limitations of component technologies and
modelling tools. The participants will address areas (1) and (2) through the
coordinated development of advanced analysis software, and targeted initiatives
to further the design of next-generation focal-plane instrumentation and fringe
tracking devices. The following workpackages will be undertaken:
WP1: Advanced instruments: The new interferometers are currently being equipped with first-generation focal-plane instruments, which have consciously been designed to be relatively simple and limited in their capabilities. The participants will support up to eight initial studies for advanced instruments, which cover a wide range of concepts. These studies will identify the most promising of these concepts, and assess their technical and financial viability. The highest-priority concepts will be studied in more detail through feasibility and pre-design studies (WP1.1).
The sensitivity of fringe trackers is one of the most important characteristics of an interferometer. Improvements over the current state of the art can be achieved mainly in two areas: fringe tracking algorithms and detectors. Fringe tracking algorithms optimized for the particular operating conditions of large facilities will improve the co-phasing ability beyond those of the current adaptations from small-aperture interferometers. The Interferometry JRP will develop optimized Co-phasing Algorithms (WP1.2).
Work Packages 1.1 and 1.2 will each be supported by a working group.
WP2: European Optical Long-Baseline Interferometry Software System: The
Interferometry JRP will develop a dedicated software package for the analysis
of data from optical / infrared interferometry. This package will be developed
according to quality standards used in comparable industrial efforts, under
the supervision of a Software Project manager and is referred to as the European
Optical Long-Baseline Interferometry (OLBI) software system. A user Support
group will be established throughout the lifetime of the project (WP2.1).
The new data analysis package will contain utilities for input / output, general
data manipulation such as sort / merge, data display and editing routines
(WP2.2). It will provide tools for fitting simple geometrical models to sparse
data sets, and to estimate best-fit parameters of physical source models (WP2.3).
It will provide facilities for astrometric data reduction, which includes
routines to determine the interferometer and source geometry from the data,
to determine stellar proper motions and parallaxes, and to fit orbits of binary
stars and planetary companions (WP2.4). A variety of image reconstruction
algorithms will be offered, based on adaptations of familiar existing methods
and on new techniques optimized for use with optical interferometer data (WP2.5)
Last update of this page on 26-Oct-2004