Long-baseline Michelson interferometry with large ground-based telescopes operating at optical wavelengths. I. General formalism. Interferometry at visible wavelengths

Abstract

Long baseline Michelson interferometry is envisaged with large ground-based telescopes operating at visible or infrared wavelengths. The ability of the method to provide accurate visibility measurements, in spite of variable seeing conditions, is discussed. Several operating modes are considered and limiting magnitudes are evaluated in each case. Performances are found to improve slowly with the aperture diameter and are found to be extremely sensitive to seeing conditions. In spite of the tremendous gain expected from Space observations, the potential of ground-based interferometry remains high. The authors treat the general formalism and analyse the case of visible wavelengths ( lambda <or approximately=0.9 mu m).