Optical/Infrared Astronomy of AST3 Lifan Wang TAMU/CCAA

The Site Dome A Elevation 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.

An example of a very successful collaboration Dome A An example of a very successful collaboration China/Australia/USA

CSTAR 2008－2011

Kunlun Station Jan 27, 2009

Major Relevant Features 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

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 at Dome 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 Science CSTAR 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 Efficiency Define 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: D-Diameter of the telescope W-Field of view of the camera q-fwhm of the image (seeing or diffraction limit) B-Sky surface brightness For an unresolved diffuse source: 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 Expansion Physics Nobel in 2011 在地球上抛一个苹果上去，其上升的速度不可能越来越大，但在宇宙尺度上，确实是这样的现象。 52 44 41 Johns Hopkins University; University Of California At Berkeley; Australian National University From left, Adam Riess, Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt shared the Nobel Prize in physics 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 SPT overlap area SDSS Southern Equatorial Stripe Tie region AST3 SN Survey/ DES Overlap Schedule: Installation in 2011-2012 Survey Operation: 2012 – 2017 Data Products: >2000 SNIa to z ~ 0.15 Core-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

Supernova Cosmology 超新星 标准烛光 More precise Hubble diagram Peculiar motion of nearby galaxies Measurement of s8 Dark matter and neutrino properties 星等 超新星 Wang, 2007 红移 标准烛光

Halo Structure

Pop III SNe

Pop III SNe KDUST2.5 KDUST4.0 AST3!!!

Survey Efficiency Define 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: D-Diameter of the telescope W-Field of view of the camera q-fwhm of the image (seeing or diffraction limit) B-Sky surface brightness For an unresolved diffuse source: 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 SDSS bands VISTA bands May, 2010

IR Background It is also noteworthy that there are summer time IR background measurement at Dome 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 Comparable to VISTA for point source 3 times faster than VISTA for diffuse source GRBs at z ~15 !?

Kunlun Dark Universe Telescope Intermediate Scale Project Supernovae Weak Lensing Strong Lensing BAO?

南极冰穹A天文观测优势 Hubble Ultra Deep Field

PILOT/KDUST Sensitivity

One Single KDUST Exposure For Comparison: KDUST Reaches HUDF Depth at 750nm in 83 Hours for point sources and 251 hours for diffuse source Hubble Ultra Deep Field

周伯星，黄色，煌煌然，所见之国大昌。 Thanks!