Hot stars and interferometry

TL;DR

This paper discusses the advancements and current state of long-baseline optical/IR stellar interferometry, emphasizing its growing accessibility and potential for hot star research.

Contribution

It highlights the recent maturation of interferometry techniques and their increasing application to hot star astrophysics, without focusing on technical details.

Findings

Interferometry now accessible to many astronomers.

Imaging capabilities are improving and becoming convincing.

The technique is maturing for hot star studies.

Abstract

What is long-baseline optical/IR stellar interferometry? A few years ago, many astronomers might not have been able to answer that question properly. This is today hopefully not the case anymore, because mainstream facilities, such as the VLTI, the Keck-I or the CHARA array, offer now this delicate technique to an astronomer who wants to observe his favourite object at the highest angular resolution available. The large teaching effort on what is interferometry and for what purpose it can be used, together with weak, but already convincing imaging capabilities, make the technique reaching a ?mature? state. I will not discuss here the details of the technique, as already many booklets are now published on the subject, but rather describe what makes long-baseline stellar interferometry attractive for the field of hot star astrophysics.