NPF update: Light-weight mirror development in Chile

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of lightweight, cost-effective mirrors in Chile to enable large-baseline infrared interferometry for direct detection and characterization of planet-forming disks and young planets.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach to producing low-cost, lightweight mirrors to support the next generation of infrared interferometers in astronomy.

Findings

Successful development of lightweight mirror prototypes.

Potential for reducing telescope costs significantly.

Enhanced feasibility for large-baseline interferometry.

Abstract

Planet Formation research is blooming in an era where we are moving from speaking about "protoplanetary disks" to "planet forming disks" (Andrews et al., 2018). However, this transition is still motivated by indirect (but convincing) hints. Up to date, the direct detection of planets "in the making" remains elusive with the remarkable exception of PDS70b and c (Haffert et al., 2019; Keppler et al., 2018; M\"uller et al., 2018). The scarcity of detections is attributable to technical challenges, and even for the rare jewels that we can detect, characterization (resolving their hill spheres) is unachievable. The next step in this direction demands from near to mid-infrared interferometry to jump from $\sim$100 m baselines to $\sim$1 km, and from very few telescopes (two to six) to 20 or more (PFI like concepts, Monnier et al. 2018). This transition needs for more affordable near to mid-infrared telescopes to be designed. Since the driving cost for such telescopes resides on the primary mirror, in particular scaling with its diameter and weight, our approach to tackle this problem relies on the production of low-cost light mirrors.