Advanced Study of the Star-Formation Process by High Resolution Imaging with Far-Infrared Interferometer

这项研究的目的是揭示恒星形成区、原行星盘和核星暴星系等高能物体周围致密尘埃云的温度分布/结构。它使我们在直接观测的基础上对单个星际尘埃云的辐射传输过程和密度结构有了全面的了解。由于典型的尘埃温度为几十K，观测应在能谱出现峰值的远红外波长区进行。我们研制了气球载远红外空间干涉仪，这是科学气球上的第一个远红外干涉仪。在第一次飞行时基线为8米，之后为20米，这是在100微米处达到1角秒的空间分辨率所需的。此外，我们还发明了一种新的无延迟线装置的菲佐干涉仪图像重建方法。延迟线装置过去是一个复杂而精密的装置，有时是星载干涉仪项目中最关键的技术难题之一。因此，新方法适用于达尔文、TPF等航天工程，仪器已基本建成。然而，由于低温恒温器的故障，第一次飞行在2008年被推迟。这次飞行将在巴西进行，作为与巴西空间研究所(INPE)和圣保罗大学的国际合作。预计这一研究项目将继续进行，并在未来向世界范围的空间红外干涉仪项目扩展。

The purpose of this research is to reveal the temperature distribution/structure of the dense dust clouds surrounding energetic objects, such as star-forming regions, protoplanetary disks, and nuclear starburst galaxies. It leads us to comprehensive understanding of the radiation transfer process and the density structure in individual interstellar dust clouds based on direct observation. As the representative dust temperature is a few tens K, the observation should be made in the far-infrared wavelength region where the energy spectrum has its peak. .We have developed a balloon-borne far-infrared space intereferometer as the first far-infrared interferometer onboard a scientific balloon. The baseline is 8m at the first flight and 20m later that is required to achieve the spatial resolution of 1 arc second at 100 microns. In addition to this, we invented a new image-reconstruction method of a Fizeau-type interferometer without the delayline device. The delayline device used to be a complicate and delicate device, and sometimes one of the most sritical technological hardle for space-borne interferometer projects. Therefore, the new method is applicable for space projects, such as DARWIN, TPF, etc.The instrument has almost been constructed. However, due to a malfanction of the cryostat, the first flight was postponed in 2008. This flight will be carried out in Brazil as an international collaboration with INPE (Brazilian Space Institute) and University of Sao Paolo.It is expected that this research project will be continued and expanded toward a world-wide space infrared interferometer project in future.