• Status and progress of China SKA Regional Centre prototype

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project consists of delivering two largest radio telescope arrays being built by the SKA Observatory (SKAO), which is an intergovernmental organization bringing together nations from around the world with China being one of the major member countries. The computing resources needed to process, distribute, curate and use the vast amount of data that will be generated by the SKA telescopes are too large for the SKAO to manage on its own. To address this challenge, the SKAO is working with the international community to create a shared, distributed data, computing and networking capability called the SKA Regional Centre Alliance. In this model, the SKAO will be supported by a global network of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) distributed around the world in its member countries to build an end-to-end science data system that will provide astronomers with high-quality science products. SRCs undertake deep processing, scientific analysis, and long-term storage of the SKA data, as well as user support. China has been actively participating in and promoting the construction of SRCs. This paper introduces the international cooperation and ongoing prototyping of the global SRC network, the construction plan of the China SRC and describes in detail the China SRC prototype. The paper also presents examples of scientific applications of SKA precursor and pathfinder telescopes completed using resources from the China SRC prototype. Finally, the future prospects of the China SRC are presented.

  • Artificial intelligence for celestial object census: the latest technology meets the oldest science

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Large surveys using modern telescopes are producing images that are increasing exponentially in size and quality. Identifying objects in the generated images by visual recognition is time-consuming and labor-intensive, while classifying the extracted radio sources is even more challenging. To address these challenges, we develop a deep learning-based radio source detector, named \textsc{HeTu}, which is capable of rapidly identifying and classifying radio sources in an automated manner for both compact and extended radio sources. \textsc{HeTu} is based on a combination of a residual network (ResNet) and feature pyramid network (FPN). We classify radio sources into four classes based on their morphology. The training images are manually labeled and data augmentation methods are applied to solve the data imbalance between the different classes. \textsc{HeTu} automatically locates the radio sources in the images and assigns them to one of the four classes. The experiment on the testing dataset shows an average operation time of 5.4 millisecond per image and a precision of 99.4\% for compact point-like sources and 98.1\% for double-lobe sources. We applied \textsc{HeTu} to the images obtained from the GaLactic and the Galactic Extragalactic All-Object Murchison Wide-field Array (GLEAM) survey project. More than 96.9\% of the \textsc{HeTu}-detected compact sources are matched compared to the source finding software used in the GLEAM. We also detected and classified 2,298 extended sources (including Fanaroff-Riley type I and II sources, and core-jet sources) above $5\sigma$. The cross-matching rates of extended sources are higher than 97\%, showing excellent performance of \textsc{HeTu} in identifying extended radio sources. \textsc{HeTu} provides an efficient tool for radio source finding and classification and can be applied to other scientific fields.

  • Status and progress of China SKA Regional Centre prototype

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project consists of delivering two largest radio telescope arrays being built by the SKA Observatory (SKAO), which is an intergovernmental organization bringing together nations from around the world with China being one of the major member countries. The computing resources needed to process, distribute, curate and use the vast amount of data that will be generated by the SKA telescopes are too large for the SKAO to manage on its own. To address this challenge, the SKAO is working with the international community to create a shared, distributed data, computing and networking capability called the SKA Regional Centre Alliance. In this model, the SKAO will be supported by a global network of SKA Regional Centres (SRCs) distributed around the world in its member countries to build an end-to-end science data system that will provide astronomers with high-quality science products. SRCs undertake deep processing, scientific analysis, and long-term storage of the SKA data, as well as user support. China has been actively participating in and promoting the construction of SRCs. This paper introduces the international cooperation and ongoing prototyping of the global SRC network, the construction plan of the China SRC and describes in detail the China SRC prototype. The paper also presents examples of scientific applications of SKA precursor and pathfinder telescopes completed using resources from the China SRC prototype. Finally, the future prospects of the China SRC are presented.

  • Interactions between the jet and disk wind in a nearby radio intermediate quasar III Zw 2

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Disk winds and jets are ubiquitous in active galactic nuclei (AGN), and how these two components interact remains an open question. We study the radio properties of a radio-intermediate quasar III Zw 2. We detect two jet knots J1 and J2 on parsec scales, which move at a mildly apparent superluminal speed of $1.35\,c$. Two $\gamma$-ray flares were detected in III Zw 2 in 2009--2010, corresponding to the primary radio flare in late 2009 and the secondary radio flare in early 2010. The primary 2009 flare was found to be associated with the ejection of J2. The secondary 2010 flare occurred at a distance of $\sim$0.3 parsec from the central engine, probably resulting from the collision of the jet with the accretion disk wind. The variability characteristics of III Zw 2 (periodic radio flares, unstable periodicity, multiple quasi-periodic signals and possible harmonic relations between them) can be explained by the global instabilities of the accretion disk. These instabilities originating from the outer part of the warped disk propagate inwards and can lead to modulation of the accretion rate and consequent jet ejection. At the same time, the wobbling of the outer disk may also lead to oscillations of the boundary between the disk wind and the jet tunnel, resulting in changes in the jet-wind collision site. III Zw 2 is one of the few cases observed with jet-wind interactions, and the study in this paper is of general interest for gaining insight into the dynamic processes in the nuclear regions of AGN.

  • Interactions between the jet and disk wind in a nearby radio intermediate quasar III Zw 2

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Disk winds and jets are ubiquitous in active galactic nuclei (AGN), and how these two components interact remains an open question. We study the radio properties of a radio-intermediate quasar III Zw 2. We detect two jet knots J1 and J2 on parsec scales, which move at a mildly apparent superluminal speed of $1.35\,c$. Two $\gamma$-ray flares were detected in III Zw 2 in 2009--2010, corresponding to the primary radio flare in late 2009 and the secondary radio flare in early 2010. The primary 2009 flare was found to be associated with the ejection of J2. The secondary 2010 flare occurred at a distance of $\sim$0.3 parsec from the central engine, probably resulting from the collision of the jet with the accretion disk wind. The variability characteristics of III Zw 2 (periodic radio flares, unstable periodicity, multiple quasi-periodic signals and possible harmonic relations between them) can be explained by the global instabilities of the accretion disk. These instabilities originating from the outer part of the warped disk propagate inwards and can lead to modulation of the accretion rate and consequent jet ejection. At the same time, the wobbling of the outer disk may also lead to oscillations of the boundary between the disk wind and the jet tunnel, resulting in changes in the jet-wind collision site. III Zw 2 is one of the few cases observed with jet-wind interactions, and the study in this paper is of general interest for gaining insight into the dynamic processes in the nuclear regions of AGN.