Exploring the Milliarcsecond Frontier: Open access to the renewed CHARA Array

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

This award provides open observing time access to the U.S. astronomical community on the Georgia State University Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA) Array on Mount Wilson, CA. This renewal makes available more time than before, up to 100 nights per year. It also funds staff to provide expertise, advice, and training for better use of the access provided to archival CHARA data. CHARA will continue to collaborate with graduate training programs in the U.S. and abroad, hosting undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs in technical and scientific capacities. CHARA will support a Georgia State University Signature Experience program for undergraduates, and work with the Mount Wilson Institute to enhance the experience for the roughly 70,000 annual visitors to the mountain, by helping to renovate the museum and other visitor facilities. These broader activities impact development of the STEM workforce and significantly enhance public engagement. The CHARA Array is an optical and near-infrared interferometer consisting of six 1-meter-aperture telescopes in a Y configuration, providing 15 baselines from 33 to 331 meters, and ten independent closure phase triangles. With the number and size of its telescopes, its imaging capabilities, the length of its baselines, the range of wavelength regimes and spectral resolutions covered by its beam combiners, the CHARA Array is a uniquely powerful facility for milliarcsecond imaging that is now reaching even deeper levels of sensitivity and performance. Its scientific results continue to advance our understanding of stellar astrophysics, exoplanets, dust and debris disks, binaries and multiple stars, and novae. This award provides for an expansion of services already in place, supporting both collaboration and external users. It also permits the team to update several aging systems on the mountain, including the aluminizing facilities and the telescope drives. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.