Enabling Milliarcsecond Astrophysics: Open access for the CHARA Array

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This program will provide observing time to the astronomical community using the Georgia State University Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA), as well as open access to archival CHARA data. Broader impacts of the work involve training of undergraduate and graduate students in instrumentation development, including a focused research opportunity for Georgia State undergraduates to participate in CHARA research. This proposal will also help fund upgrades to the CHARA Exhibit Hall on Mt. Wilson, which illustrates interferometry to the general public via displays of historical equipment and explanations of how the current system works. CHARA operates an optical/near infrared (OIR) interferometric array on Mount Wilson, CA. The CHARA Array has six 1-m 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. This proposal defines a path to move optical interferometry from a rather small and experimental group to a broader user community.