1. Optical/Infrared Astronomy of AST3
Lifan Wang
TAMU/CCAA

2. The Site
Dome A
Elevation 4,091 m (13,422 ft)
Coordinates: -80d22m, E77d 21m

3. 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.

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

5. CSTAR
2008－2011

6. Kunlun Station Jan 27, 2009

7. 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

8. 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

9. Zou et al. 2010

10. Zou et al. 2010

11. Zou et al. 2010

12. Dome C
Dome A
Height of Turbulence Layer at Dome A & C
Boner et al. 2010

13. Precipitable Water Vapor

14. Nigel at Dome A
Nigel
Black spectrum: Hill & Jones JGR 105, 9421 (2000)

15. 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.

16. Example Science CSTAR Data An Exoplanet Candidate
Black dots: Raw data
Red dots:
Data binned to 10 min interval

18. d Scuti star Uninterrupted 4.5-d light curve
(representing 3.5% of the entire data).
Folded light curve using P = d; the photometric uncertainty is 1.5 mmag/bin.
Lingzhi Wang, Lucas Macri et al. 2011

19. 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 ,
as is the case for 2.4 micron at Dome A, a 0.5
meter telescope can survey as fast as a
meter telescope at a temperate site
A single KDUST field is 2 sq degree.

20. Antarctica Survey Telescopes

21. AST3
68/50cm Diameter
FoV 4.2 Sq Deg
1”/pix

22. 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

23. 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.

24. Standard Candles

25. Sensitivity

26. Sensitivity

28. AST3 SN Survey/ DES Overlap SPT overlap area
SDSS Southern
Equatorial Stripe
Tie region
AST3 SN Survey/
DES Overlap
Schedule: Installation in
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

29. 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

31. Halo Structure

32. Pop III SNe

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

34. 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 ,
as is the case for 2.4 micron at Dome A, a 0.5
meter telescope can survey as fast as a
meter telescope at a temperate site
A single KDUST field is 2 sq degree.

35. z=7 Quasar and VISTA Filters
SDSS bands
VISTA bands
May, 2010

36. 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.

37. 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 !?

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

39. 南极冰穹A天文观测优势
Hubble Ultra Deep Field

40. PILOT/KDUST Sensitivity

41. 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

42. 周伯星，黄色，煌煌然，所见之国大昌。
Thanks!