Practical beam transport for PFI

Abstract

The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) is a future kilometric-baseline infrared interferometer to image the complex physical processes of planet formation. Technologies that could be used to transport starlight to a central beamcombining laboratory in PFI include free-space propagation in air or vacuum, and optical fibres. This paper addresses the design and cost issues associated with free-space propagation in vacuum pipes. The signal losses due to diffraction over long differential paths are evaluated, and conceptual beam transport designs employing pupil management to ameliorate these losses are presented and discussed.

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.…”

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.…”