CHARA/MIRC-X: a high-sensitive six telescope interferometric imager concept, commissioning and early science

Narsireddy Anugu, J.-B. Le Bouquin, John D. Monnier, Stefan Kraus, Gail Schaefer, Benjamin R. Setterholm, Claire L. Davies, Tyler Gardner, Aaron Labdon, Cyprien Lanthermann

Abstract

MIRC-X is a six telescope beam combiner at the CHARA array that works in J and H wavelength bands and provides an angular resolution equivalent to a B=331m diameter telescope. The legacy MIRC combiner has delivered outstanding results in the fields of stellar astrophysics and binaries. However, we required higher sensitivity to make ambitious scientific measurements of faint targets such as young stellar objects, binary systems with exoplanets, and active galactic nuclei. For that purpose, MIRC-X is built and is offered to the community since mid-2017. MIRC-X has demonstrated up to two magnitudes of improved faint magnitude sensitivity with the best-case H <= 8. Here we present a review of the instrument and present early science results, and highlight some of our ongoing science programs.

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