Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope Research Articles

The Development of the FAST Project in China

Acting as a pilot of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) has been proposed for construction in the unique karst area of southwest China. FAST is of Arecibo-type with rather a number of innovations, among which the active main spherical reflector shows fascinating. Furthermore, the feed cabin is supported and moved by cables controlled by computer, which avoids a heavy and expensive focal pointing system. With the effective aperture of 300 m, a large sky coverage, and a broad bandwidth (200 to 2000 MHz), possible capability up to 5 ∼8 GHz, FAST will be the world's largest single dish and perform markedly role in radio astronomy.

The Influence of Panel Gaps on the System Noise Temperature of the FAST

A Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST), the largest single dish in the world, is proposed to be built in one of the karst depressions in Guizhou province. The main spherical reflector is to consist of about two thousand small panels, which can be adjusted to fit a paraboloid in real time. There are many slit-like gaps across the aperture due to manufacturing error, thermal eects and deviations between a sphere and a paraboloid. The influence of the energy leakage of the narrow gaps on the system noise temperature of the FAST reflector is discussed in this paper.

Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope Project

AbstractA Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is proposed to be built in the unique karst area of southwest China, and will act, in a sense, as a prototype for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). It will be over twice as large as the Arecibo telescope coupled with much wider sky coverage. Some results from site surveys for such a SKA concept are briefly reported. Technically, FAST is not simply a copy of the existing Arecibo telescope but has rather a number of innovations. Firstly, the proposed main spherical reflector, by conforming to a paraboloid of revolution in real time through actuated active control, enables the realization of both wide bandwidth and full polarization capability while using standard feed design. Secondly, a feed support system which integrates optical, mechanical and electronic technologies will effectively reduce the cost of the support structure and control system. Pre-research on FAST has become a key project in the CAS.

Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope project

A Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is proposed to be built in the unique karst area of southwest China, and will act, in a sense, as a prototype for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). It will be over twice as large as the Arecibo telescope coupled with much wider sky coverage. Some results from site surveys for such a SKA concept are briefly reported. Technically, FAST is not simply a copy of the existing Arecibo telescope but has rather a number of innovations. Firstly, the proposed main spherical reflector, by conforming to a paraboloid of revolution in real time through actuated active control, enables the realization of both wide bandwidth and full polarization capability while using standard feed design. Secondly, a feed support system which integrates optical, mechanical and electronic technologies will effectively reduce the cost of the support structure and control system. Pre-research on FAST has become a key project in the CAS.

A Potential Site for the World's Largest Single Dish, FAST

We have carried out a series of measurements at some locations in Guizhou Province and one additional site at the Urumqi Astronomical Station in the Xinjiang autonomous region, to check on their suitability, from the point of view of interference, for the construction of a Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST). This large facility will in some sense act as a prototype for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). Measurements were made using a commercial receiver in the frequency range 25–1500 MHz. The results in Guizhou look quite promising. A protected radio quiet zone in Guizhou would make it an ideal location for an international radio astronomical facility, and would establish the FAST site as a natural SKA location.

Analysis for Reflector Aluminum Mesh Panels of Five-Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope

AbstractIn this paper, an analysis of the aluminum reflector mesh panels for the Five-hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) is described. The study concentrates on one element of the reflector surface with the shape of a triangle. For the analysis, the panel is modelled as a mesh of cables so that it can be treated as continuous. It is demonstrated that the results so obtained are reasonable.

Dynamic models of the Hipp pendulum regulator: PMM vol. 35, n≗1, 1971, pp. 147–162

We present some preliminary results of an on-going study of HI 21-cm absorption lines based on the 40% survey data released by the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array (ALFALFA). (1) Ten HI candidate absorbers have been detected. Five of them are previously published in the literature, and the rest of them are new detections that need further confirmation. (2) For those sources with no detected absorptions, we have calculated the upper limit of their foreground HI column density NHI. The statistical result of the NHI distribution indicates that the ratio Ts/f between the averaged spin temperature and coverage factor for DLAs (the damped Lyα systems) might be larger than 500 K. The radio frequency interference (RFI) and standing wave are the main factors affecting the detection of HI absorption lines, which have been analyzed and discussed as well in order to find a method of solution. Our study can serve as a pathfinder for the future large-scale search of HI 21-cm absorption lines using the Five-Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), which is an Arecibo-type radio telescope currently under construction in China with greatly increased sensitivity, bandwidth, and observational sky area. As prospects, we have discussed two types of observational studies of HI absorption lines toward extragalactic sources using the FAST telescope.