Shanghai Astronomical Observatory Astrophysics Colloquium

Title：Fast Transient Studies in the First Year Operation of the Wide Field Survey Telescope

Speaker: Ji-an Jiang (USTC)

Time：3:00 pm May 22th (Thursday)

Tencent Meeting：42915400486 password: 6360

Location: Lecture Hall, 3rd floor

Abstract：

Transients with fast brightness variance in UV/optical (“fast transients”), such as early-phase supernovae (SNe), fast blue ultraluminous transients (FBUTs or LFBOTs), kilonovae, are of great interest in time-domain astronomy. Given their rapid brightness variance and shallow depths of transient surveys with (sub-)meter class telescopes, fast-transient observations are still limited. The Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST or "Mozi") is a 2.5 m optical telescope with a high throughput at blue wavelengths and equipped with a mosaic CCD camera covering a field of view of 6.5 square degree, making WFST one of the most powerful fast transient survey facilities in the world. The telescope carried out a pilot survey from Mar 6 to Jul 10, 2024 and has started the formal 6-year survey from Dec 14, 2024. In this talk, I'm going to introduce the current status of WFST and transient sciences through the WFST global time-domain network in the past year.

CV：

Prof. Ji-an Jiang graduated from the College of Physical Science and Technology, Central China Normal University in 2013, and obtained PhD from the University of Tokyo in March 2019. After that he worked as postdoctoral fellow in Kavli IPMU for three years and then moved to National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) as a research fellow in 2022. Since April 2023 he joined the Department of Astronomy, USTC and awarded the DAMO Academy Young Fellow in 2024. Prof. Jiang mainly works on supernovae and related transients by leading/joining wide-field transient survey projects. He has been awarded over 2000-hours ground and space telescope time since 2014. Currently he is a core member of the 2.5-m Wide Field Survey Telescope (WFST, or "Mozi") project and in charge of the design of observation strategy, management of WFST survey and follow-up observations, and the supernova science panel of WFST.