Airglow and Aurorae at Dome A, Antarctica

Sims, Geoff; Ashley, M. C. B.; Cui, Xiangqun; Everett, Jon R.; Li, Feng; Gong, Xuefei; Hengst, S.; Hu, Zhongwen; Lawrence, Jon; Luong-Van, D.; Moore, Anna; Riddle, Reed; Shang, Zhaohui; Storey, J. W. V.; Tothill, N.; Travouillon, Tony; Wang, Lifan; Yang, Huigen; Yang, Ji; Zhou, Xu; Zhu, Zhenxi

doi:10.1086/666861

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Various site surveys in recent years have revealed the advantages of the Antarctic plateau sites. Low and stable count rates of sky backgrounds in optical bandpasses have been measured at Dome C (Kenyon & Storey 2006), the south pole (Ashley et al 1996;Nguyen et al 1996), and Dome A (Zou et al 2010;Sims et al 2012a). High atmospheric transmission has been inferred at Dome A (Lawrence 2004;Yang et al 2009) and various Antarctic sites (Lawrence 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera

Yang

Moore

Krisciunas

et al. 2017

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The summit of the Antarctic plateau, Dome A, is proving to be an excellent site for optical, near-infrared, and terahertz astronomical observations. Gattini is a wide-field camera installed on the PLATO instrument module as part of the Chinese-led traverse to Dome A in 2009 January. We present here the measurements of sky brightness with the Gattini ultra-large field of view ( ´ 90 90 ) in the photometric B-, V-, and R-bands; cloud cover statistics measured during the 2009 winter season; and an estimate of the sky transparency. A cumulative probability distribution indicates that the darkest 10% of the nights at Dome A have sky brightness of S B =22.98, S V =21.86, and S R =21.68 mag arcsec −2 . These values were obtained during the year 2009 with minimum aurora, and they are comparable to the faintest sky brightness at Maunakea and the best sites of northern Chile. Since every filter includes strong auroral lines that effectively contaminate the sky brightness measurements, for instruments working around the auroral lines, either with custom filters or with high spectral resolution instruments, these values could be easily obtained on a more routine basis. In addition, we present example light curves for bright targets to emphasize the unprecedented observational window function available from this ground-based site. These light curves will be published in a future paper.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera

Yang

Moore

Krisciunas

et al. 2017

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“…Since IACTs can only operate in low light conditions, the telescopes can operate during astronomical night which corresponds to winter in the Southern hemisphere. At South Pole, these conditions obtain for 4 months of the year, while the Sun is more than 12.6 • below the horizon 3 [60]. Dark skies are required to detect air showers, although the SiPM-based camera will be capable of operating with the Moon above the horizon [61].…”

Section: Optics and Photon Collection Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Detailed characterizations of the aurora australis at both the South Pole and Dome A, roughly 1,000 km away on the peak of the plateau, have been reported in [60] and [67]. Contributions to the NSB can be divided into two classes: line emission associated with the aurora australis, and continuum emission, including airglow, zodiacal light, starlight, diffuse galactic light, and quasi-continuous components of auroral emission ascribed to molecular bands of nitrogen and oxygen.…”

Section: Sky Brightness and Auroraementioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes as a Potential Veto Array for Neutrino Astronomy

Rysewyk,

Lennarz,

DeYoung

et al. 2019

Preprint

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The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has revealed the existence of sources of highenergy astrophysical neutrinos. However, identification of the sources is challenging because astrophysical neutrinos are difficult to separate from the background of atmospheric neutrinos produced in cosmic-ray-induced particle cascades in the atmosphere. The efficient detection of air showers in coincidence with detected neutrinos can greatly reduce those backgrounds and increase the sensitivity of neutrino telescopes. Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) are the most sensitive devices for detecting gamma-ray-induced (and cosmic-ray-induced) air showers in the 50 GeV to 50 TeV range, and can therefore be used as backgroundidentifiers for neutrino observatories. This paper describes the feasibility of an array of small scale, wide field-of-view, cost-effective IACTs as an air shower veto for neutrino astronomy. A surface array of 250 to 750 telescopes would significantly improve the performance of a cubic kilometer-scale detector like IceCube, at a cost of a few percent of the original investment. The number of telescopes in the array can be optimized based on astronomical and geometrical considerations.

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“…Chamberlain (1961) described typical intensity levels as 250 R for airglow and 1 kR for aurora emissions. The 1 kR has since been used in studies as a threshold for emissions generally assumed to be associated with direct impact excitation by precipitating particles (e.g., Frank & Craven, 1988;Kamide et al, 1999;Sims et al, 2012). In addition, the distributions of ionospheric parameters were almost the same when the threshold was raised above 1 kR but varied when lower thresholds were used.…”

Section: Journal Of Geophysicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Often Do Thermally Excited 630.0 nm Emissions Occur in the Polar Ionosphere?

Kwagala

Oksavik

Lorentzen³

et al. 2018

JGR Space Physics

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This paper studies thermally excited emissions in the polar ionosphere derived from European Incoherent Scatter Svalbard radar measurements from the years 2000–2015. The peak occurrence is found around magnetic noon, where the radar observations show cusp‐like characteristics. The ionospheric, interplanetary magnetic field and solar wind conditions favor dayside magnetic reconnection as the dominant driving process. The thermal emissions occur 10 times more frequently on the dayside than on the nightside, with an average intensity of 1–5 kR. For typical electron densities in the polar ionosphere (2 × 1011 m−3), we find the peak occurrence rate to occur for extreme electron temperatures (>3000 K), which is consistent with assumptions in literature. However, for extreme electron densities (>5 × 1011 m−3), we can now report on a completely new population of thermal emissions that may occur at much lower electron temperatures (∼2300 K). The empirical atmospheric model (NRLMSISE‐00) suggests that the latter population is associated with enhanced neutral atomic oxygen densities.

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Airglow and Aurorae at Dome A, Antarctica

Cited by 18 publications

References 59 publications

Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera

Optical Sky Brightness and Transparency during the Winter Season at Dome A Antarctica from the Gattini-All-Sky Camera

Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes as a Potential Veto Array for Neutrino Astronomy

How Often Do Thermally Excited 630.0 nm Emissions Occur in the Polar Ionosphere?

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