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arXiv · 2408.03896

Planet Formation Imager (PFI): Project update and future directions

John D. Monnier·Stefan Kraus·Michael J. Ireland
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Abstract

The Planet Formation Imager (PFI) Project is dedicated to defining a next-generation facility that can answer fundamental questions about how planets form, including detection of young giant exoplanets and their circumplanetary disks. The proposed expansive design for a 12-element array of 8m class telescopes with >1.2 km baselines would indeed revolutionize our understanding of planet formation and is technically achievable, albeit at a high cost. It has been 10 years since this conceptual design process began and we give an overview of the status of the PFI project. We also review how a scaled back PFI with fewer large telescopes could answer a range of compelling science questions, including in planet formation and as well as totally different astrophysics areas. New opportunities make a space-based PFI more feasible now and we give a brief overview of new efforts that could also pave the way for the Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) space mission.

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John D. Monnier, Stefan Kraus, Michael J. Ireland. 2024-08-07. Planet Formation Imager (PFI): Project update and future directions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03896

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