Fiber Fine Structures Superposed on the Solar Continuum Emission Near 3 GHz

On April 21, 2002, a broadband solar radio burst was observed at about 01:00 – 03:00 UT with the digital spectrometers of National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC). Also many fiber bursts superposed on the continuum bursts were detected in the frequency range of 2.6 – 3.8 GHz during the time interval. After data processing, some parameters of the fibers such as frequency drift rate, duration, bandwidth, and relative bandwidth were determined. The mean value of the frequency drift was in the range of 42.3 – 87.4 MHz s⁻¹ (negative). A theoretical interpretation for the fibers was presented based upon a model of the velocity of Alfvén solitons. In this model, the source of the fiber emission was considered as the ducting of the solitons within the magnetic-mirror loop. Then the magnetic field strength of the fiber source was estimated to be about 130 ≤ B₀ ≤ 270 G. Also a comparison of the magnetic field estimation was made with another model of whistler group velocity.     

Using the Evolution of Coronal Dimming Regions to Probe the Global Magnetic Field Topology

We demonstrate that study of the evolving magnetic nature of coronal dimming regions can be used to probe the large-scale magnetic structure involved in the eruption of a coronal mass ejection (CME). We analyse the intensity evolution of coronal dimming regions using 195 Å data from the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). We measure the magnetic flux, using data from the SOHO/Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI), in the regions that seem most likely to be related to plasma removal. Then, we compare these magnetic flux measurements to the flux in the associated magnetic cloud (MC). Here, we present our analysis of the well-studied event on 12 May 1997 that took place just after solar minimum in a simple magnetic configuration. We present a synthesis of results already published and propose that driven “interchange reconnection” between the expanding CME structure with ‘`open’' field lines of the northern coronal hole region led to the asymmetric temporal and spatial evolution of the two main dimming regions, associated with this event. As a result of this reconnection process, we find the southern-most dimming region to be the principal foot-point of the MC. The magnetic flux from this dimming region and that of the MC are found to be in close agreement within the same order of magnitude, 10²¹ Mx.     

On the Temporal and Spatial Properties of Elementary Bursts

“Elementary bursts” refer to fine time structures on scales of tens of milli-second to a few seconds in flare radiations. In this paper, we investigate temporal and spatial properties of elementary bursts by exploiting high-cadence Hα (100 ms) and hard X-ray (125 – 500 ms) observations of an impulsive flare on March 16, 2000. We find that the time scale of 2 – 3 s is likely an upper limit of the elementary bursts in this event, at which hard X-ray emissions observed by different instruments correlate, low energy (≤30 keV) hard X-rays and Hα flux correlate, and Hα emissions at conjugate flare kernels correlate. From our methods, and also largely limited by instrument resolutions, there is a weak indication of existence of sub-second structures. With the high-resolution Hα data, we also attempt to explore the spatial structure of “elementary bursts” by determining the average spatial displacement of Hα peak emission between successive “elementary bursts” defined from hard X-ray light curves. We find that, at the time scale of 3 s, the smallest spatial scale, as limited by the imaging resolution, is about 0.4″. We discuss these results with respect to mechanisms of fragmented magnetic energy release.     

SAGE测光巡天数据处理方法研究

元素丰度与星系演化(Stellar Abundance and Galactic Evolution,SAGE)是自主设计的能够准确计算恒星大气参数以及消光的新测光系统。对北天除银盘外共计约12 000 deg2的天区开展了SAGE系统测光巡天,计划获取约5亿颗恒星的高精度测光数据。单次曝光条件下100σ完备星等uSC～17. 3,vSAGE～16. 8(AB星等),这些为研究银河系提供宝贵的测光资料。介绍了巡天专用的数据处理程序的研究和开发,主要研究了针对单幅图像的快速自动化处理过程,重点介绍数据改正、天体测量校正、测光和流量定标过程,以及数据结果和数据质量检测等。     

南山26米射电望远镜轨道高差测量及其对指向精度的影响

轮轨式天线的轨道作为承载整个天线重量的基础,其精度直接影响天线在方位方向运转的平稳性,引起天线轴系偏差从而影响天线的指向精度。介绍改造后的乌鲁木齐南山26 m射电望远镜(Nanshan Radio Telescope, NSRT)轨道结构以及轨道高差测量,并建立天线在不同方位、俯仰角下轨道高差引起天线指向偏差的数学模型。利用"十字扫描"法实测多颗标准源在相应位置的指向数据,并通过高斯拟合得到指向偏差。通过分析可知,轨道高差引起的指向偏差经过修正可以提高天线的指向精度。     

基于容器技术的天文应用软件自动部署方法

平方千米阵列即将开始建设,各子工作包也进入关键设计评估阶段。基于云与容器技术是平方千米阵列科学数据处理器未来可能采用的平台技术。针对超大规模海量数据处理面临的天文应用软件快速部署、运行与实测要求,充分考虑天文应用软件运行环境复杂、云计算环境下超大规模计算集群部署困难等问题,系统研究并给出了一种使用容器技术的天文应用软件通用自动部署方法。以目前较为常用的可见度函数校准软件SAGECaL为例,首先分析了SAGECaL的相关特性和分布式部署方面存在的困难,进而给出了基于容器技术的SAGECaL分布式集群的自动部署方法。实验结果表明,自动部署方法极大地提高了SAGECaL分布式集群的部署效率,满足项目组承担平方千米阵列科学数据处理器相关测试工作所需要的基础平台部署与切换等需求,同时也为其它天文软件在云端的快速部署与执行提供了有益的思路。     

Evidence for the Retrograde Accretion onto Supermassive Black Holestwo

Recently, Sloan Digital Sky Survey successfully carried out the reverberation mapping of a sky area, aiming to test the R ? L relation that has been already widely used. Here, R is the responsivity-weighted radius of the broad line region, and L is the optical luminosity at 5100 Å. Two results have been obtained from the data in the first year: (1) The time lags of AGNs (Active Galactic Nuclei) with a high accretion rate are much shorter than that estimated from the R ? L relation, which confirmed the results of reverberation mapping observations made by the Lijiang 2.4 meter telescope. (2) Some AGNs with a lower accretion rate also have very short time lags. The shortening of the time lags of the AGNs with a low accretion rate is caused by the retrograde accretion of black holes. This result has verified from observations the theoretical prediction made by Wang et al. (2014). The discovery of the black holes with a retrograde accretion has important significance, it indicates that the cosmological evolution of the black holes in quasars is implemented via the inherently random accretion.     

TAOS – The Taiwanese‐American Occultation Survey

The Taiwanese‐American Occultation Survey (TAOS) seeks to determine the number and size spectrum for small (∼3 km) bodies in the Kuiper Belt. This will be accomplished by searching for the brief occultations of bright stars (R ∼ 14) by these objects. We have designed and built a special purpose photometric monitoring system for this purpose. TAOS comprises four 50 cm telescopes, each equipped with a 2048 × 2048 pixel CCD camera, in a compact array located in the central highlands of Taiwan. TAOS will monitor up to 2 000 stars at 5 Hz. The system went into scientific operation in the autumn of 2005. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Test area of the SAGE survey

Sky surveys represent one of the most important efforts to improve developments in astrophysics,especially when using new photometric bands. We are performing the Stellar Abundance and Galactic Evolution(SAGE) survey with a self-designed SAGE photometric system, which is composed of eight photometric bands. The project mainly aims to study the stellar atmospheric parameters of ～0.5 billion stars in ～12 000 deg2 of the northern sky, which mainly focuses on Galactic astronomy, as well as some aspects of extragalactic astronomy. This work introduces the detailed data reduction process of the test field NGC 6791, including the data reduction of single-exposure images and stacked multi-exposure images, and properties of the final catalog.     

The potential of FAST in detecting celestial hydroxyl masers and related science topics

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope(FAST) will make contributions to studies of Galactic and extragalactic masers. This telescope, with construction finished and now undergoing commissioning, has an innovative design that leads to the highest sensitivity of any single dish radio telescope in the world. FAST's potential for OH megamaser research is discussed, including the sky density of masers detectable in surveys. The scientific impact expected from FAST maser studies is also discussed.