NBFTP: a dedicated data transfer system for remote astronomical observation at Dome A

Dome A,Antarctica,has been thought to be one of the best astronomical sites on the Earth for decades.Since it was first visited by astronomers in 2008,dozens of facilities for astronomical observation and site testing were deployed.Due to its special geographical location,the data and message exchange between Dome A and the domestic control center could only depend on Iridium.Because the link bandwidth of Iridium is extremely limited,the network traffic cost is quite expensive and the network is rather unstable,the commonly used data transfer tools,such as rsync and scp,are not suitable in this case.In this paper,we design and implement a data transfer tool called NBFTP(narrow bandwidth file transfer protocol)for the astronomical observation of Dome A.NBFTP uses a uniform interface to arrange all types of data and matches specific transmission schemes for different data types according to rules.Break-point resuming and extensibility functions are also implemented.Our experimental results show that NBFTP consumes 60%less network traffic than rsync when detecting the data pending to be transferred.When transferring small files of 1 KB,the network traffic consumption of NBFTP is 40%less than rsync.However,as the file size increases,the network traffic consumption of NBFTP tends to approach rsync,but it is still smaller than rsync.

Spectral principal component analysis of the Hβ region of low-redshift SDSS quasars

Studying the relationships among quasar spectral features is essential to unveil the origins of the emission lines and the quasars’ physical processes. Principal component analysis(PCA) is a powerful tool to investigate correlations between variables. Here, we present the results of PCA on the spectra of low-redshift SDSS quasars. The rest-frame wavelength range studied is 4000 – 5500 ?, involving some typical features of quasar spectra, such as Hβ, [O Ⅲ] and Fe Ⅱ emission lines. The first principal component is the anti-correlation between [O Ⅲ] and Fe Ⅱ, the well-known eigenvector one(EV1). The next six principal components also show clear(anti-)correlations between line strengths and/or velocity widths of various features, which agree well with measured spectral properties. By comparing the weights of these principal components with other quasar properties, we can identify their underlying drivers. We find that the second principal component represents spectral slope, and can quantify quasar host fraction, intrinsic slope and reddening well. The third component exhibits the velocity width variation of Hβ, and may be a proxy for orientation. In addition, we calculate the fractional-contribution spectra to investigate which components dominate the variance at individual wavelength ranges. Our results also indicate that the optical Fe Ⅱ emission may have distinct origins.

Optical observations of LIGO source GW 170817 by the Antarctic Survey Telescopes at Dome A,Antarctica

The LIGO detection of gravitational waves(GW) from merging black holes in 2015 marked the beginning of a new era in observational astronomy. The detection of an electromagnetic signal from a GW source is the critical next step to explore in detail the physics involved. The Antarctic Survey Telescopes(AST3),located at Dome A, Antarctica, is uniquely situated for rapid response time-domain astronomy with its continuous night-time coverage during the austral winter. We report optical observations of the GW source(GW 170817) in the nearby galaxy NGC 4993 using AST3. The data show a rapidly fading transient at around 1 day after the GW trigger, with the i-band magnitude declining from 17:23 ± 0:13 magnitude to 17:72 ± 0:09 magnitude in ~1:8 h. The brightness and time evolution of the optical transient associated with GW 170817 are broadly consistent with the predictions of models involving merging binary neutron stars. We infer from our data that the merging process ejected about ~10^(-2) solar mass of radioactive material at a speed of up to 30% the speed of light.