Science with LINC-NIRVANA

People involved at OAB: Ciliegi, Diolaiti

The LINC-NIRVANA (LN) interferometer for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is one of the key projects of INAF. Thanks to its extraordinary capability to obtain high resolution images ($\sim10$-20 milliarcsec) in the near infrared bands ($J$, $H$, $K$), LN will open new exciting windows in a wide variety of astronomical topics: from the Solar System science to the formation and evolution of the Universe.

In order to fully exploit the scientific capability of the instrument, a scientific working group was selected within the LN team, following also the recommendation of the Final Design Review Board.

In February 2006, the first meeting of the scientific working group was organized at OAB. The aim of this working group is to study all the possible scientific observations in order to identify any improvement in the LN hardware and software design and to test LN under different observing conditions. Five key scientific programmes (and their PIs) were selected (see , Science section):

1. Galaxies at redshift $z\sim1$-2 (P. Ciliegi, INAF-Bologna, and E. Schinnerer, MPIA-Heidelberg)

2. Proper motions of local stars (T. Herbst and M. Kuerster, MPIA-Heidelberg)

3. Center of nearby galaxies (T. Beckert and G. Weigelt, MPIFR-Bonn )

4. Young Stellar Objects (D. Lorenzetti and B. Nisini, INAF-Roma)

5. Galactic Center (A. Eckart, University of Köln)

These five specific projects are based on a list of about 60 `science projects' collected for LN in February 2006, and represent a broad group of projects with similar instrument requirements.

At the moment of this writing, our group in Bologna is working to select a list of possible real galaxies at $z\sim1$-2 that satisfy all the LN observational requirements (magnitude limit, presence of relative bright stars in the technical field of view for fringe tracking and adaptive optics, etc.). For each selected target, a PSF and a Strehl Ratio map will be simulated using the simulation software developed at INAF-Arcetri and INAF-Padova. Subsequently, for each target, we will construct a final image using the software for the simulation and reconstruction of astronomical images developed by the Genova and Bonn teams. Finally, the reconstructed images will be analysed for the final scientific evaluation.

This work is in collaboration with M. Lombini (INAF-Arcetri), I. Foppiani and L. Schreiber (Dipartimento di Astronomia - Università di Bologna).