• Scott, Nicholas J.
• Monnier, John D.
• Schaefer, Gail
• Mortimer, Daniel J.
• Majoinen, Olli W.
• Kraus, Stefan
• Jocou, Laurent
• Ibrahim, Nour
• Anderson, Matthew D.
• Chhabra, Sorabh
• Farrington, Christopher D.
• Vargas, Norman L.
• Codron, Isabelle
• Ten Brummelaar, Theo
• Setterholm, Benjamin R.
• Lanthermann, Cyprien
• Le Bouquin, Jean-Baptiste
• Gutierrez, Mayra
• Gardner, Tyler
• Flores, Becky
• Ennis, Jacob

Abstract

The Michigan Young Star Imager at CHARA (MYSTIC) is a K-band interferometric beam combining instrument funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, designed primarily for imaging sub-au scale disk structures around nearby young stars and to probe the planet formation process. Installed at the CHARA Array in July 2021, with baselines up to 331 m, MYSTIC provides a maximum angular resolution of λ / 2B ∼ 0.7 mas. The instrument injects phase-corrected light from the array into inexpensive, single-mode, polarization maintaining silica fibers, which are then passed via a vacuum feedthrough into a cryogenic dewar operating at 220 K for imaging. MYSTIC uses a high frame rate, ultra-low read noise SAPHIRA detector and implements two beam combiners: a six-telescope image plane beam combiner, based on the MIRC-X design, for targets as faint as 7.7 Kmag, as well as a four-telescope integrated optic beam-combiner mode using a spare chip leftover from the GRAVITY instrument. MYSTIC is co-phased with the MIRC-X (J + H band) instrument for simultaneous fringe-tracking and imaging and shares its software suite with the latter to allow a single observer to operate both instruments. We present the instrument design, review its operational performance, present early commissioning science observations, and propose upgrades to the instrument that could improve its K-band sensitivity to 10th magnitude in the near future....

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• phase