Keck Interferometer Nuller science highlights

We report here on some of the major astronomical observations obtained by the Keck Interferometer Nuller (KIN), the high dynamic range instrument recombining the Keck Telescopes at wavelengths of 8 to 13 microns. A few science targets were observed during the commissioning phase (2004-2007). These early observations aimed at demonstrating the KIN’s ability to spatially resolve and characterize circumstellar dust emission around a variety of targets, ranging from evolved stars to young debris disks. Science operations started then in 2008 with the more demanding KIN exozodi key science programs, augmented by observations of YSOs and hot debris disks between 2009 and 2011. The last KIN observations were gathered in 2011B, and the interpretation of some of the results depicted here is still preliminary (exo-zodi survey) or pending (complicated behavior observed in YSOs). We discuss in particular the initial results of the KIN’s exo-zodi observations, which targeted a total of 40 nearby main sequence single stars. We look for trends in this sample, searching for possible correlations between the measured KIN excesses and basic stellar properties such as spectral type or the presence of dust inferred from separate observations.