Forecast of Observing Time Delay of Strongly Lensed Quasars with the Muztagh-Ata 1.93m Telescope

As a completely independent method,the measurement of time delay of strongly lensed quasars(TDSL)are crucial to resolve the Hubble tension.Extensive monitoring is required but so far limited to a small sample of strongly lensed quasars.Together with several partner institutes,Beijing Normal University is constructing a 1.93 m reflector telescope at the Muztagh-Ata site in west China,which has the world class observing conditions with median seeing of 082 and median sky brightness of 21.74 mag arcsec-2 in V-band during the dark time.The telescope will be equipped with both a three-channel imager/photometer which covers 3500–11,000?wavelength band,and a low-medium resolution(λ/δλ=500/2000/7500)spectrograph.In this paper,we investigate the capability of the Muztagh-Ata 1.93 m telescope in measuring time delays of strongly lensed quasars.We generate mock strongly lensed quasar systems and light curves with microlensing effects based on five known strongly lensed quasars,i.e.,RX J1131-1231,HE 0435-1223,PG 1115+080,WFI 2033-4723 and SDSS 1206+4332.In particular,RX J1131-1231 is generated based on the lens modeling results of Suyu et al.Due to the lack of enough information,the other four systems are calculated by a simple analytical approximation.According to simulations,for RX J1131-like systems(wide variation in time delay between images)the TDSL measurement can be achieved with the precision aboutΔt=0.5 day with four seasons campaign length and 1 day cadence.This accuracy is comparable to the up-coming TDCOSMO project.And it would be better when the campaign length keeps longer and with high cadence.As a result,the capability of the Muztagh-Ata 1.93 m telescope allows it to join the network of TDSL observatories.It will enrich the database for strongly lensed quasar observations and make more precise measurements of time delays,especially considering the unique coordinate of the site.

Science with the 2.5-meter Wide Field Survey Telescope(WFST)

The Wide Field Survey Telescope(WFST) is a dedicated photometric surveying facility being built jointly by University of Science and Technology of China(USTC) and the Purple Mountain Observatory(PMO). It is equipped with a 2.5-meter diameter primary mirror, an active optics system, and a mosaic CCD camera with 0.73 gigapixels on the primary focal plane for highquality image capture over a 6.5-square-degree field of view. The installation of WFST near the summit of Saishiteng mountain in the Lenghu region is scheduled in summer of 2023, and the operation is planned to start three months later. WFST will scan the northern sky in four optical bands(u, g, r and i) at cadences from hourly/daily in the deep high-cadence survey(DHS) program, to semi-weekly in the wide field survey(WFS) program. During a photometric night, a nominal 30 s exposure in the WFS program will reach a depth of 22.27, 23.32, 22.84, and 22.31(AB magnitudes) in these four bands, respectively, allowing for the detection of a tremendous amount of transients in the low-z universe and a systematic investigation of the variability of Galactic and extragalactic objects. In the DHS program, intranight 90 s exposures as deep as 23(u) and 24 mag(g), in combination with target of opportunity follow-ups, will provide a unique opportunity to explore energetic transients in demand for high sensitivities, including the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave events, supernovae within a few hours of their explosions,tidal disruption events and fast, luminous optical transients even beyond redshift of unity. In addition, the final 6-year co-added images, anticipated to reach g■25.8 mag in WFS or 1.5 mags deeper in DHS, will be of fundamental importance to general Galactic and extragalactic science. The highly uniform legacy surveys of WFST will serve as an indispensable complement to those of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time(LSST) that monitors the southern sky.