The GRAVITY+ Project: Towards All-sky, Faint-Science, High-Contrast Near-Infrared Interferometry at the VLTI
GRAVITY Collaboration, Roberto Abuter, Patricio Alarcon, Fatmé Allouche, A. Amorim, Christophe Bailet, Helen Bedigan, Anthony Berdeu, Jean-Philippe Berger, P. Bério, Azzurra Bigioli, Richard Blaho, Olivier Boebion, Marie-Lena Bolzer, Henri Bonnet, Guillaume Bourdarot, P. Bourget, W. Brandner, César A. Cárdenas, Ralf Conzelmann, Mauro Comin, Y. Clénet, Benjamin Courtney-Barrer, Yigit Dallilar, R. Davies, Denis Defrère, Alain Delboulbé, F. Delplancke-Ströbele, R. Dembet, P. T. de Zeeuw, A. Drescher, A. Eckart, Clemence Édouard, Frank Eisenhauer, Maximilian Fabricius, H. Feuchtgruber, Gert Finger, Förster Schreiber, Natascha M., E. Fuenteseca, Enrique García, P. García, F. Gao, É. Gendron, R. Genzel, Juan Pablo Gil, S. Gillessen, Tiago Gomes, Frédéric Gonté, Carole Gouvret, Patricia Guajardo, Ivan Guidolin, Sylvain Guieu, Ronald Guzmann, W. Hackenberg, Nicolás Haddad, Michael Hartl, X. Haubois, F. Haußmann, G. Heißel, Thomas Henning, S. Hippler, S. F. Hönig, M. Horrobin, N. Hubin, Estelle Jacqmart, L. Jocou, A. Kaufer, P. Kervella, Jean-Paul Kirchbauer, J. Kolb, H. Korhonen, Laura Kreidberg, P. W. Krempl, S. Lacour, S. Lagarde, Olivier Lai, V. Lapeyrère, Romain Laugier, Le Bouquin, Jean-Baptiste, J. Leftley, Pierre Léna, S.A.E. Lewis, D. Lutz, Y. Magnard, Felix Mang, Aurélie Marcotto, D. Maurel, A. Mérand, F. Millour, Nikhil More, Nowacki, Hugo, Matthias Nowak, Sylvain Oberti, Francisco Javier Vidal Olivares, Thomas Ott, Laurent Pallanca, T. Paumard, K. Perraut, G. Perrin, R. Petrov
Abstract
The GRAVITY instrument has been revolutionary for near-infrared interferometry by pushing sensitivity and precision to previously unknown limits. With the upgrade of GRAVITY and the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in GRAVITY+, these limits will be pushed even further, with vastly improved sky coverage, as well as faint-science and high-contrast capabilities. This upgrade includes the implementation of wide-field off-axis fringe-tracking, new adaptive optics systems on all Unit Telescopes, and laser guide stars in an upgraded facility. GRAVITY+ will open up the sky to the measurement of black hole masses across cosmic time in hundreds of active galactic nuclei, use the faint stars in the Galactic centre to probe General Relativity, and enable the characterisation of dozens of young exoplanets to study their formation, bearing the promise of another scientific revolution to come at the VLTI.