VLTI status update: a decade of operations and beyond
Antoine Merand, Roberto Abuter, Emmanuel Aller-Carpentier, Luigi, Andolfato, Jaime Alonso, Jean-Philippe Berger, Guillaume Blanchard, Henri, Boffin, Pierre Bourget, Paul Bristow, Claudia Cid, Willem-Jan de Wit, Diego, del Valle, Franccoise Delplancke-Stroebele, Frederic Derie
TL;DR
This paper reviews a decade of VLTI operations, highlighting improvements in efficiency, capabilities, and instrumentation, while also reflecting on community development and future instrument preparations.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive update on VLTI's operational enhancements and community analysis after ten years, including progress towards second-generation instruments.
Findings
Operational efficiency has significantly improved over a decade.
VLTI's capabilities and instrumentation have advanced notably.
Preparations for second-generation instruments are underway.
Abstract
We present the latest update of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope interferometer (VLTI). The operations of VLTI have greatly improved in the past years: reduction of the execution time; better offering of telescopes configurations; improvements on AMBER limiting magnitudes; study of polarization effects and control for single mode fibres; fringe tracking real time data, etc. We present some of these improvements and also quantify the operational improvements using a performance metric. We take the opportunity of the first decade of operations to reflect on the VLTI community which is analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Finally, we present briefly the preparatory work for the arrival of the second generation instruments GRAVITY and MATISSE.
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