Program: GS-2006B-Q-15

Symbiotic stars, in which material from a red-giant donor accretes onto or interacts with a compact companion, provide astrophysics with fascinating (relatively) nearby laboratories displaying phenomena such as astrophysical jets, shocks, accretion disks and colliding winds. Here we request a modest allotment of telescope time to image the two brightest southern-hemisphere symbiotic stars in the mid-infrared. We will exploit the recently commissioned aperture masking facility in the TReCS camera, which has now demonstrated the highest fidelity images ever recovered in the mid-infrared at spatial scales approaching the diffraction limit. This combination of resolving power and imaging dynamic range will be crucial in the study of symbiotic systems, opening a window on the key physics within the deeply dust-enshrouded interaction between the giant and dwarf.