Aims and scope

The "VLTI Community Day" (VCD) provides a platform for the VLTI user community to exchange with ESO, to discuss about ongoing and future projects, and to advertise the scientific opportunities offered by VLTI to the wider astronomical community.

The first VCD took place in January 2014 in Grenoble/France. Holding the next VCD at EWASS 2015 is timely, given that the commissioning of the 2nd-generation instrument VLTI/GRAVITY is planned to start in late 2015 and that the science community should prepare for the first science observations. It will include presentations on the scientific opportunities that will be enabled by GRAVITY, covering topics in Galactic Center research, AGNs, YSOs, and exoplanets. Furthermore, we will reserve time for discussions about yet unexplored applications that could be pursued, stimulating the community to make optimal use of this new instrument.

An important objective of the VCD is also to serve as entrance point for potential new VLTI users. For this purpose, we will review the science opportunities enabled by VLTI, set them into relation to the capabilities of other techniques and facilities (e.g. ALMA), and outline available tools and contact points for user support. In fact, several initiatives are currently underway in order to make VLTI more accessible to non-expert users, including the establishment of VLTI expertise centres.

With the 2nd-generation VLTI instruments nearing completion, we will also facilitate a discussion about the future of VLTI in the ELT era. Studies in this direction are currently conducted by several groups, investigating infrastructure enhancements that could push VLTI either towards imaging at higher fidelity, higher contrast, or at new wavelength regimes. The meeting will provide the stage to outline these plans and to collect community feedback. This feedback will be incorporated into the whitebook that is currently prepared by the OPTICON-funded "Future of Interferometry in Europe" working group, providing input for upcoming infrastructure decisions.

The meeting comprises three sessions (1.5 hours each) and will be open to contributed talks, where we will favour contributions that present recent highlights in high-angular resolution research, on innovative uses of interferometry, or instrumentation aspects. We welcome poster contributions about all topics related to high-angular resolution astronomy.

Programme | Talks

The GRAVITY instrument and its applications instellar astrophysics, Guy Perrin

From Newtonian to general relativistic dynamics – Galactic Center science with the GRAVITY interferometer, Oliver Pfuhl

First AMBER-MR observations of high-mass young stellar objects, Alessio Caratti o Garatti

Peering into the most massive star in the Galaxywith near-infrared interferometry, Jose Groh

The first milli-arcsecond image of a post-AGB binary: RAPID/PIONIER unveils the inner 10 AU of IRAS08544-4431, Michel Hillen

AMBER-VLTI high spectral resolutionobservations of Herbig AeBe stars, Rebeca Garcia Lopez

MATISSE - A Mid-Infrared Interferometric Instrument for the VLTI, Thomas Henning

VLTI and ALMA. The potential for a groundbreaking symbiosis, Ivan Marti-Vidal

The detection of a jet with VLTI/MIDI in NGC 1052, Juan Antonio Fernández-Ontive

Quasar parallax from differential interferometry with the VLTI and spectro-astrometry with the E-ELT, Romain Petrov

PIONIER as a VLTI instrument for the broadcommunity, Steve Ertel

The VLTi in the next decade, Jean-Philippe Berger

Optical Interferometry Made Easy: a proposal for regional expertise centres, Gilles Duvert

VLTI Community Day -- Panel Discussion; with Antoine Mérand, Gilles Duvert, Guy Perrin, Henri Boffin, Stefan Kraus (chair) and Thomas Henning

Programme | Posters

The binary nature of the LBV HR Car, Henri Boffin

Characterization of Elias 3-1 and WW Cha circumbinary disks in the mid-infrared with MIDI/VLTI, Juan Andres Cahuasqui

OiDB: A global database for Optical Interferometry, Xavier Haubois

CANDID: Companion Analysis and Non Detection in optical Interferometric Data, Antoine Merand

Fiber-based Heterodyne Near-Infrared Interferometry - An Instrumentation Study Platform on the way to the proposed Infrared Planet Formation Imager, Ernest Michael

Accessing the near- and mid-infrared spectral range simultaneously at the VLTI with Chalcogenide based integrated optics devices, Jan Tepper

Invited speakers

Jean-Philippe Berger (ESO, Garching, Germany)
Jason Dexter (Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany)
Gilles Duvert (IPAG, Grenoble, France)
Thomas Henning (Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany)
Ivan Marti-Vidal (Onsala Space Observatory, Onsala, Sweden)
Guy Perrin (Observatoire Paris, France)