The CAS Chinese Academy of Sciences The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope, nicknamed Tianyan, is a radio telescope located in the Dawodang depression, a natural basin in Pingtang County, Guizhou, southwest China. FAST has a 500 m diameter dish constructed in a natural depression in the landscape Observatory in Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, China, People’s Republic of China …
The construction of the 500-meter-aperture spherical radio telescope started on March 25, 2011 ; the completion and launching ceremony was held on September 25, 2016, and the technological infrastructure entered trial operation and trial commissioning; on January 11, 2020 It has passed the national inspection and acceptance work in China and is officially open for operation .
The 500-meter-aperture spherical radio telescope has created a new model for building giant telescopes. It has built a radio telescope with a reflective surface equivalent to 30 football fields. The sensitivity is more than 2.5 times that of the world’s second largest telescope, which greatly expands human vision and is used for exploration the origin and evolution of the universe
中国天眼有新发展 – 中国天眼查询nanohertz gravitational wave breakthrough ] Searching for nahertz gravitational waves is one of the focal issues in the international physics and astronomy fields. A Chinese research team recently used the “China Sky Eye” FAST to detect key evidence of the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, which is an important breakthrough in the search for nanohertz gravitational waves. This discovery marks that my country’s nanohertz gravitational wave detection and research have simultaneously reached the world’s leading level, which is of great significance for understanding supermassive black holes, the history of galaxy mergers, and the formation of large-scale structures in the universe.
中国天眼Discovery of key evidence for the existence of nanohertz gravitational wave “China Sky Eye” (FAST) ushered in a major breakthrough again. Using FAST observation data, the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) research team found key evidence of the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, indicating that my country’s research on nanohertz gravitational waves has reached the leading level in synchronization with the world. Relevant research results were published online in Astronomy and Astrophysics Research on June 29.
The nanohertz gravitational wave is a kind of gravitational wave with very low frequency, and the gravitational wave is caused by the disturbance of the surrounding space-time caused by the accelerating mass object. The detection of gravitational waves with a frequency as low as nanohertz will help astronomers understand the origin of the structure of the universe. It will also help physicists to detect the growth, evolution and merger process of the most massive celestial body in the universe, that is, the supermassive black hole. Gain insights into the fundamental physics of spacetime.
At present, the research on nanohertz gravitational waves has become one of the focuses of international competitions in the fields of physics and astronomy. Theory predicts that nanohertz gravitational waves are mainly produced by the merger of supermassive black holes. The North American Nahertz Gravitational-Wave Observatory, the European Pulsar Timing Array and the Australian Parkes Pulsar Timing Array have each carried out 20-year-long Nahertz gravitational-wave searches.
However, since the frequency of nanohertz gravitational waves is extremely low, the period lasts for several years, and its wavelength can reach several light-years, its detection is extremely challenging. The long-term timing observation of a group of millisecond pulsars with extremely regular rotation using a large radio telescope is the only known detection method for nanohertz gravitational waves.
In this study, the CPTA team used FAST to conduct long-term systematic monitoring of 57 millisecond pulsars, and formed these millisecond pulsars into a galaxy-scale gravitational wave detector to search for nanohertz gravitational waves. Based on independently developed software, the team conducted an in-depth analysis of the data collected by FAST with a time span of 3 years and 5 months, and found a nanohertz at a confidence level of 4.6 sigma (false positive rate is less than 1 in 500,000). Key evidence for a quadrupole-related signal characteristic of gravitational waves.
However, due to the short observation time, the researchers are still unable to determine the main physical source of the nanohertz gravitational waves.
It is worth mentioning that the European Pulsar Timing Array-India Pulsar Timing Array, the North American Nahertz Gravitational-Wave Observatory and the Australian Parkes Pulsar Timing Array and other pulsar timing array cooperation groups also announced similar the result of. “The four international teams independently obtained the key evidence for the existence of nanohertz gravitational waves, which allowed the research results to be mutually verified and further improved the accuracy of this result,” Li Kejia said.
He Zishan, chair professor of Peking University and academician of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, believes that this major scientific breakthrough has a profound impact on the evolution of galaxies and the study of supermassive black holes, and also opens a new window for gravitational wave astrophysics…
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