We present the design for MYSTIC, the Michigan Young STar Imager at CHARA.
MYSTIC will be a K-band, cryogenic, 6-beam combiner for the Georgia State
University CHARA telescope array. The design follows the image-plane
combination scheme of the MIRC instrument where single-mode fibers bring
starlight into a non-redundant fringe pattern to feed a spectrograph. Beams
will be injected in polarization-maintaining fibers outside the cryogenic dewar
and then be transported through a vacuum feedthrough into the ~220K cold volume
where combination is achieved and the light is dispersed. We will use a C-RED
One camera (First Light Imaging) based on the eAPD SAPHIRA detector to allow
for near-photon-counting performance. We also intend to support a 4-telescope
mode using a leftover integrated optics component designed for the VLTI-GRAVITY
experiment, allowing better sensitivity for the faintest targets. Our primary
science driver motivation is to image disks around young stars in order to
better understand planet formation and how forming planets might influence disk
structures.Comment: Presented at the 2018 SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation,
Austin, Texas, US
