Dome C, Antarctica, an outstanding site for infrared astronomy

It has been demonstrated that the atmospheric conditions at Dome C are exceptionally good : the natural seeing ? can reach ? ~ 0.3 arcsec, the isoplanetic angle ? is twice or three times larger than any other observational site, and the background is extremely low in the infrared mainly due to the cold temperatures. The small telescope ASTEP, dedicated to exoplanet search, is already running at Concordia. But to make the best use of these exceptional characteristics, we propose to build a wide-field, high-resolution (~0.3 arcsec using Ground Layer Adaptive Optics) infrared (from 0.8 to 5 µm) off-axis telescope. With such a telescope, we'll have the highest possible dynamic range and angular resolution and wide-field imaging capabilities in the near- and thermal-infrared range to follow up the scientific programmes of extremely large instruments such E-ELT, LSST or Euclid.