Optical/Infrared Astronomy of AST3

Lifan Wang

TAMU/CCAA

The Site

Dome AElevation 4,091 m (13,422 ft)Coordinates: -80d22m, E77d 21m

The highest peak on the Plateau

Marching toward Antarctica

A team of Pioneers led by Yuanshen Li of Polar Research Institute Of China arrived at Dome Argus, Antarctica on Jan 18, 2005.

Dome AAn example of a very successfulcollaboration

China/Australia/USA

CSTAR

2008－ 2011

Kunlun StationJan 27, 2009

• Continuous observing time for more than 3 months• Low temperature, low sky background in thermo IR• Low turbulence boundary layers, good seeing• Dry air, high transmission in IR• Large Isoplanatic Angle

• Aurora• High relative humidity• Difficult to access

Major Relevant Features

Science Considerations• Time Domain Astronomy – Requires Clear Sky• High Spatial Resolution, Wide Field Astronomy – Requires Clear Sky,

Good Seeing• Wide Field Infrared Survey – Requires Clear Sky, Good Seeing, and Low

Sky Background

• Terahertz Telescope – Requires Low PWV

Zou et al. 2010

Zou et al. 2010

Zou et al. 2010

Dome C

Dome A

Height of Turbulence Layer at Dome A & C

Boner et al. 2010

Precipitable Water Vapor

Nigel at Dome A

Nigel

Black spectrum: Hill & Jones JGR 105, 9421 (2000)

IR Background

It is also noteworthy that there are summer time IR background measurement atDome C (Walden et al. 2005). The summer time 3-20 m backgrounds were found to be very stable and at levels comparable to the measurements at South Pole during the winter.

Example ScienceCSTAR Data

An Exoplanet Candidate

Black dots: Raw data

Red dots:Data binned to 10 min interval

d Scuti star

Uninterrupted 4.5-d light curve (representing 3.5% of the entire data).

Folded light curve using P = 0.2193d; the photometric uncertainty is 1.5 mmag/bin.

Lingzhi Wang, Lucas Macri et al. 2011

Survey EfficiencyDefine the survey efficiency k as the sky area a telescope can survey to a given S/N for a resolved source in a specific exposure time:

For an unresolved diffuse source:

€

κ ∝ΩDθ ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2 1B ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟ 1S /N ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2

D-Diameter of the telescopeΩ-Field of view of the cameraq-fwhm of the image (seeing or diffraction limit)B-Sky surface brightness

€

κ ∝ΩD2 1B ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟ 1S /N ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2 If the background is lower by a factor of 50-100,

as is the case for 2.4 micron at Dome A, a 0.5 meter telescope can survey as fast as a 3.5-5.0 meter telescope at a temperate site

A single KDUST field is 2 sq degree.

Antarctica Survey Telescopes

AST3

• 68/50cm Diameter• FoV 4.2 Sq Deg• 1”/pix

Studies of Universe’s ExpansionPhysics Nobel in 2011

Johns Hopkins University; University Of California At Berkeley; Australian National UniversityFrom left, Adam Riess, Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt shared the Nobel Prize in physics

52 44 41

2006年，邵逸夫天文奖曾颁发给同样的三位科学家及其发现

SN1006——One Thousand Years After

Chandra Image

周伯星，黄色，煌煌然，所见之国大昌。The Zhoubo stars are yellowish and brilliant. Nations observing them will reach great prosperity.

Standard Candles

Sensitivity

Sensitivity

AST3 SN Survey/DES Overlap

Schedule: Installation in 2011-2012Survey Operation: 2012 – 2017

Data Products:

>2000 SNIa to z ~ 0.15Core-collapse SNe; GRB; Orphan GRB afterglow

LMC continuous monitoring –variable stars/microlensing/dark matter Galactic center continuous monitoring – variable stars/microlensing/transients

Galactic structure – RR Lyrae/Cepheids

SPT overlap area

SDSS SouthernEquatorial Stripe

Tie region

Supernova Cosmology More precise Hubble diagram Peculiar motion of nearby galaxies Measurement of s8

Dark matter and neutrino properties

29

超新星标准烛光红移

星等

Wang, 2007

Halo Structure

Pop III SNe

Pop III SNe

AST3!!!

KDUST4.0KDUST2.5

Survey EfficiencyDefine the survey efficiency k as the sky area a telescope can survey to a given S/N for a resolved source in a specific exposure time:

For an unresolved diffuse source:

€

κ ∝ΩDθ ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2 1B ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟ 1S /N ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2

D-Diameter of the telescopeΩ-Field of view of the cameraq-fwhm of the image (seeing or diffraction limit)B-Sky surface brightness

€

κ ∝ΩD2 1B ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟ 1S /N ⎛ ⎝ ⎜

⎞ ⎠ ⎟2 If the background is lower by a factor of 50-100,

as is the case for 2.4 micron at Dome A, a 0.5 meter telescope can survey as fast as a 3.5-5.0 meter telescope at a temperate site

A single KDUST field is 2 sq degree.

z=7 Quasar and VISTA Filters

May, 2010

VISTA bandsSDSS bands

IR Background

It is also noteworthy that there are summer time IR background measurement atDome C (Walden et al. 2005). The summer time 3-20 m backgrounds were found to be very stable and at levels comparable to the measurements at South Pole during the winter.

AST3 NIR

Synoptic Infrared Survey Telescope

In KDARK, compared to 2MASS, an increase of efficiency by (2048/256)2 * (0.5/1.3)2 * 50 = 473 times

GRBs at z ~15 !?

Comparable to VISTA for point source3 times faster than VISTA for diffuse source

Kunlun Dark Universe Telescope

Intermediate Scale Project Supernovae Weak Lensing Strong Lensing BAO?

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

南极冰穹 A天文观测优势

PILOT/KDUST Sensitivity

Hubble Ultra Deep Field

One Single KDUST Exposure

For Comparison: KDUST Reaches HUDF Depth at 750nm in 83 Hours for point sources and 251 hours for diffuse source

Thanks!

周伯星，黄色，煌煌然，所见之国大昌。