Optical and infrared interferometers

Abstract

Stellar interferometers achieve limiting angular resolution inaccessible to evennext-generation single-aperture telescopes. Arrays of small or modest apertureshave achieved baselines exceeding 300 m producing submilliarcsecond resolutionsat visible and near-infrared wavelengths. The technical cost and challenge inbuilding interferometric arrays is substantial due to the very high toleranceimposed by optical physics on the precision of beam combination and optical pathlength matching for two or more telescopes. This chapter presents the basic theoryand overall design considerations for an interferometer with an emphasis on thepractical aspects of constructing a working instrument that overcomes obstaclesimposed by the atmosphere, submicron path length matching requirements, limitations on number of telescopes and their layout, light losses throughmultiple reflections and transmissions necessary to superimpose telescopebeams in the beam-combining laboratory, and other realities of the art ofinterferometry. The basic design considerations for an interferometer arelaid out starting with site selection and telescope placement and thenfollowed through to beam combination and measurement of interferometricvisibility and closure phase after the encountering of numerous subsystems byincoming wavefronts. These subsystems include active wavefront sensing fortip/tilt correction or even full-up adaptive optics, telescope design fordirecting collimated beams over large distances, diffraction losses, polarizationmatching, optical path length insertion and active compensation, correctionfor atmospheric refraction and differential dispersion in glass and air, separation of light into visible and near-infrared channels, alignment over longoptical paths, high-precision definition of the three-dimensional layout of aninterferometric array, and, finally, a variety of beam-combining schemes fromsimple two-way combiners to multitelescope imaging combiners in thepupil and image planes. Much has been learned from a modest but robustcollection of successful interferometers over the last 25 years or so, andinterferometry is poised to become a mainstream technique for astrophysicalresearch.