The Power of Optical/IR Interferometry: Recent Scientific Results and 2nd Generation Instrumentation

Celebrating the completion of the first phase of VLTI development, the ESO workshop The Power of Optical/IR Interferometry, held in 2005, gathered researchers together to review and discuss not just interferometers, but also how science uses interferometers and their impact on astronomy as a whole. This volume contains the proceedings of this workshop, serving as a reference for astronomers working with optical and infrared interferometry.

Long-baseline interferometry has been traditionally regarded as a very technical method with a limited number of applications. At the turn of the millennium, with the introduction of large community-oriented facilities such as the VLTI, we are seeing a transformation into a major astronomical technique, with a corresponding dramatic increase in the number of publications. This book marks this transition, by providing a wide and deep insight into a large number of diverse and compelling results recently obtained by long-baseline interferometers. It also provides an insight into concepts which form the basis of future instruments and further developments in this technique.