  The internal antarctic plateau revealed in the last years to be a site with
interesting potentialities for the astronomical applications due to the extreme
dryness and low temperatures, the typical high altitude of the plateau, the
weak level of turbulence in the free atmosphere down to a just few tens of
meters from the ground and the thin optical turbulence layer developed at the
ground. The main goal of a site testing assessment above the internal antarctic
plateau is to characterize the site (optical turbulence and classical
meteorological parameters) and to quantify which is the gain we might obtain
with respect to equivalent astronomical observations done above mid-latitude
sites to support plans for future astronomical facilities. Our group is
involved, since a few years, in studies related to the assessment of this site
for astronomical applications that include the characterization of the
meteorological parameters and optical turbulence provided by general
circulation models as well as mesoscale atmospherical models and the
quantification of the performances of Adaptive Optics (AO) systems. In this
talk I will draw the status of art of this site assessment putting our studies
in the context of the wide international site testing activity that has been
done in Antarctica. I will focus on the site assessment relevant for
astronomical applications to be done in the visible up to the near infrared
ranges, i.e. those ranges for which the optical turbulence represents a
perturbing element for the quality of the images and the AO techniques an
efficient tool to correct these wavefront perturbations.
