Collaborative Research: Imaging planet-forming disks around young Suns using a revolutionary infrared detector

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On the summit of Mt. Wilson overlooking Los Angeles sits a Y-shaped array of six 1-m aperture telescopes. Unlike telescopes located on other mountaintops, these six are not used independently of each other, but are instead used in unison to effectively form a single larger telescope, an interferometric array, in which the optical and near-infrared light from each of the telescopes is combined with the light from its neighbors. Operation of the six 1-m telescopes as an interferometric array results in the ability to detect finer details (spatial resolution) in astronomical sources than would be possible if the 1-m telescopes were utilized individually. With physical separations between the six 1-m telescopes ranging from 33 to 331 meters, spatial resolutions better than 1 milliarcsecond are achieved. This far exceeds the resolution of the largest ground-based and orbiting telescopes, and is even an order of magnitude better than will be possible with the extremely large telescopes (ELTs) currently under development. The subject proposal requests funding for the development and implementation of a new backend (detection instrument) called MYSTIC (Michigan Young STar Imager for CHARA). MYSTIC is an infrared instrument for the CHARA Array specifically designed to image planet-forming disks around young Suns with the highest angular resolution in the world. The major advances of the MYSTIC instrument are realized through the utilization of 1) a high tech beam combiner, which combines the light from the six 1-m aperture telescopes, and 2) a new technology infrared detector, which converts the combined light into an electronic signal.The heart of the MYSTIC instrument is the small format (320x256) SELEX eAPD camera and GRAVITY optical beam combiners. The near-IR camera array is HgCdTe utilizing a Si multiplexer with an order of magnitude reduction in readout noise, which is critical improving the sensitivity of the CHARA array to achieve the science goals of the program. The optical core of MYSTIC will be a highly optimized integrated optics combiner made available through a strategic collaboration with the Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble. The proposed program assembles an international team to provide the CHARA and US communities with an imaging interferometric telescope that will open up new discovery space for stellar astrophysics and exoplanet studies.