VITRUV - Imaging close environments of stars and galaxies with the VLTI at milli-arcsec resolution

Fabien Malbet (1) , Jean-Philippe Berger (1) , Paulo Garcia (2) , Pierre Kern (1) , Karine Perraut (1) , Myriam Benisty (1) , Laurent Jocou (1) , Emilie Herwats (1) , Jean-Baptiste Lebouquin (1) , Pierre Labeye (3) , Etienne Le Coarer (1) , Olivier Preis (1) , Eric Tatulli (1) , Éric Thiébaut (4)

1 LAOG - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
2 CAUP - Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto
3 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information
4 CRAL - Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon

The VITRUV project has the objective to deliver milli-arcsecond spectro-images of the environment of compact sources like young stars, active galaxies and evolved stars to the community. This instrument of the VLTI second generation based on the integrated optics technology is able to combine from 4 to 8 beams from the VLT telescopes. Working primarily in the near infrared, it will provide intermediate to high spectral resolutions and eventually polarization analysis. This paper summarizes the result from the concept study led within the Joint Research Activity advanced instruments of the OPTICON program.

Mots clés: Astronomy; Interferometry; Aperture synthesis; Large telescopes; Integrated optics

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Fabien Malbet, Jean-Philippe Berger, Paulo Garcia, Pierre Kern, Karine Perraut, et al.. VITRUV - Imaging close environments of stars and galaxies with the VLTI at milli-arcsec resolution. The Power of Optical/IR Interferometry: Recent Scientific Results and 2nd Generation VLTI Instrumentation, The European Southern Observatory (ESO), 2005, Garching bei München, Germany. in press. ⟨hal-00005889⟩