中国古代短暂星象记录天体物理意义新探索

China had the longest continuous records in the world of astronomical events. Many events were of extraordinary and eruptive nature that might be of astrophysical meaning. The study of supernovae and novae, the most spectacular stellar outbursts in the universe, is definitely one of these fields because this type of phenomena is rarely seen. Several scholers have studied this and published some catalogues of ancient Chinese records of novae and supernovae which have broken new ground in the astrophsics. The catalogues edited by Xi Zezong and Clark & Stephenson and Li Qibin are the most influential catalogues of historical novae and supernovae. These studies, however, were published more than 30 years ago and some were even half century ago. These years, there have been important new discoveries and theories in astronomy and astrophysics that might throw new light on the interpretation of astronomical meaning of the “new stars” in the catalogue. Moreover, some powerful databases of ancient Chinese books had come into use. Through these tools, we can easily find the content with our key words. With this help, we have found that some of the records in these catalogues are neglected or wrongly quoted. We propose a new survey of historical records of temporary stars that might be of astrophysical meaning as they are examined today.

中国拥有最为久远和持续的古代天象记录，其中有些记录对现代天体物理学研究有重要意义。在众多古代天象记录中，新星及超新星等短暂星象记录尤其受到当今天体物理学家的关注。多位学者对中国古代新星记录做了周密的考证和研究，制定了新星及超新星表，这些研究开创了天体物理学研究的新局面。在众多研究中，席泽宗、克拉克和斯蒂芬森、李启斌的星表影响最大。以上这些研究主要是在三十年前完成的，有些甚至是在五十年前完成的。近些年来，一方面天体物理学有了新的进展，发现了更多的射电源，这些射电源可能与中国古代某些记录相关；另一方面，出现了一些新型古代文献数据库，为准确检索、搜集和整理天象记录提供了极大的便利。利用这些数据库，我们重新检查前人的新星及超新星表，发现有错收或漏收记录的问题。我们希望在前人研究的基础上，结合近些年来天体物理学的新进展，运用现代数据库提供的检索手段，对中国古代短暂星象记录进行一个新的考察和整理。

首先，我们重新审视了三张较有影响的新星表，包括：席泽宗星表，收录了97条记录；David H. Clark 和F. Richard Stephhenson星表，此表收录75条记录；李启斌整理的星表，此表收录53条记录，主要源自于庄威凤整理的《中国古代天象记录总集》。经过对比，我们发现三表中共同收入的记录只有46项，有84条不同的记录，这是由于这三张表使用了不同的收录标准。基于此，我们重新厘定了一个较为严格的收星标准，检索了《四库全书》、《会要》、《十通》等重要文献数据库，确定出一张更加全面、准确的短暂星象记录表。在此过程中，我们对1408年超新星记录以及Cas A的可能的中国记录进行了初步研究。另外，我们检索了四库全书中有关太白昼见的天象记录，制定了一张包含200多项的太白昼见的记录表。这一天象在中国古代具有重要的星占意义。我们试图将史书中记录的数据和根据现代天文学理论计算的数据进行对比，考察古人记录此天象的标准以及是否存在为附和某些历史事件伪造天象的情况。