SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Chenwei Yang

Publications and source records attributed to Chenwei Yang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

A superflare of BP Tau simultaneously caught by EP X-ray and TESS optical observations

Multiwavelength observations of stellar flares trace the activity of different components of the stars' outer atmosphere, providing insight into their interactions. In the present paper, we report a superflare from BP Tau, simultaneously observed with the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) satellite and TESS. While we attribute the X-ray flux increase to a magnetically powered flare, the optical light curve likely results from the superposition of the flare and an accretion burst. The X-ray flare has a mean flux of $(1.5^{+0.3}_{-0.4})\times10^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ in the WXT energy band (0.5-4.0 keV), with e-folding times of $1.7\pm1.0$ ks and $14\pm5$ ks for the rise and decay phase, respectively. The corresponding time-integrated flare energy is $(1.0\pm 0.2)\times 10^{36}$ erg. The optical flare has an e-folding time of $0.33\pm0.04$ ks for the rise phase, but the data do not constrain the decay timescale. Assuming a decay phase equal to the rise phase, the resulting optical flare energy is $(2.8\pm0.4)\times10^{34}$ erg in the TESS band ($\sim6,000$-$\sim10,000$ \AA), corresponding to a bolometric energy of $(1.9\pm0.3)\times10^{35}$ erg (assuming a blackbody at 11000 K). The Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT) on EP triggered an observation $\sim1.5$ day after the flare, with a flux of $(4.6^{+0.2}_{-0.5})\times10^{-13}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ (0.5-10.0 keV), indicating that BP Tau had returned to quiescence. This work demonstrates the potential of jointly analyzing EP and TESS data for superflares. WXT is expected to detect $\sim800$ superflares per year, with FXT capable of slewing to the flaring star within $\sim3$-5 minutes. The large field of view of both missions offers us the opportunity to study multiwavelength variability during energetic flares.

astro-ph.SR

Dust-obscured radio-emitting tidal disruption event coincident with a high-energy neutrino event

Despite the growing number of high-energy neutrinos (TeV-PeV) detected by IceCube, their astrophysical origins remain largely unidentified. Recent observations have linked a few tidal disruption events (TDEs) to the production of high-energy neutrino emission, all of which display dust-reprocessed infrared flares, indicating a dust- and gas-rich environment. By cross-matching the neutrino events and a sample of mid-infrared outbursts in nearby galaxies with transient radio flares, we uncover an optically obscured TDE candidate, SDSS J151345.75 $+$ 311125.2, which shows both spatial and temporal coincidence with the sub-PeV neutrino event IC170514B. Using a standard equipartition analysis of the synchrotron spectral evolution spanning 605 days post mid-infrared discovery, we find a little evolution in the radio-emitting region, with a kinetic energy up to $10^{51}$ erg, depending on the outflow geometry and shock acceleration efficiency assumed. High-resolution European VLBI Network imaging reveals a compact radio emission that is unresolved at a scale of $<$ 2.1 pc, with a brightness temperature of $T_b>5\times10^6$ K, suggesting that the observed late-time radio emission might originate from the interaction between a decelerating outflow and a dense circumnuclear medium. If the association is genuine, the neutrino production is possibly related to the acceleration of protons through pp collisions during the outflow expanding process, implying that the outflow-cloud interaction could provide a physical site with a high-density environment for producing the sub-PeV neutrinos. Such a scenario can be tested with future identifications of radio transients coincident with high-energy neutrinos.

astro-ph.HE

Antarctic TianMu Staring Observation Project I: Overview and Implementation of the Prototype Telescope

Wide-field rapid sky surveys serve as critical observational methods for time-domain astronomical research. The Antarctic region, with several months of continuous dark nights annually, is an ideal site for time-domain astronomical observations. The Antarctic TianMu Staring Observation Project aims to deploy a fleet of small telescopes, adopting an array observation model to conduct time-domain optical observations in Antarctica, featuring wide-sky coverage, high-cadence sampling, long-period staring, and simultaneous multi-band measurements. Considering the severe challenges optical telescopes face in Antarctica, including extremely low temperatures, unattended operation, and limited power supply and network transmission, we have designed and developed the Antarctic TianMu prototype telescope based on drift-scan charge-coupled device technology. In October 2022, our prototype (with an aperture of 18 cm), named AT-Proto was transported to Zhongshan Station in Antarctica aboard China's 39th Antarctic Research Expedition. It has since operated stably and reliably in the frigid environment for over two years, demonstrating the significant advantages of this technology in polar astronomical observations. The experimental observation results of AT-Proto provide a solid foundation for the subsequent construction of a time-domain astronomy observation array in Antarctica.

astro-ph.IM

Line-force driven wind from a thin disk in tidal disruption event

Winds from the accretion disk in tidal disruption events (TDEs) play a key role in determining the radiation of TDEs. The winds from the super-Eddington accretion phase in TDEs have recently been studied. However, properties of the winds from the sub-Eddington accretion disk in TDEs are not clear. We aim to investigate properties of winds from the circularized sub-Eddington accretion disk in TDEs. We study the line force driven accretion disk wind. We perform two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations using the PLUTO code to study the line force driven wind from the circularized accretion disk around a $10^6$ solar mass black hole in TDEs. We find that although the disk has a very small size in TDEs, strong wind can be driven by line force when the disk have luminosity higher than $20\%$ of the Eddington luminosity. The maximum velocity of wind can be as high as $0.3$ times the speed of light. The kinematic power of wind is in the range of $1\%-6\%$ times the Eddington luminosity. Strong wind can be driven by line force from the thin disk around a $10^6$ solar mass black hole in TDEs. We briefly discuss the possible radio emission from the shock when the wind collides with the surrounding medium.

astro-ph.HE

High Performance Space Debris Tracking in Complex Skylight Backgrounds with a Large-Scale Dataset

With the rapid development of space exploration, space debris has attracted more attention due to its potential extreme threat, leading to the need for real-time and accurate debris tracking. However, existing methods are mainly based on traditional signal processing, which cannot effectively process the complex background and dense space debris. In this paper, we propose a deep learning-based Space Debris Tracking Network~(SDT-Net) to achieve highly accurate debris tracking. SDT-Net effectively represents the feature of debris, enhancing the efficiency and stability of end-to-end model learning. To train and evaluate this model effectively, we also produce a large-scale dataset Space Debris Tracking Dataset (SDTD) by a novel observation-based data simulation scheme. SDTD contains 18,040 video sequences with a total of 62,562 frames and covers 250,000 synthetic space debris. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of our model and the challenging of our dataset. Furthermore, we test our model on real data from the Antarctic Station, achieving a MOTA score of 73.2%, which demonstrates its strong transferability to real-world scenarios. Our dataset and code will be released soon.

cs.CV

Discovery of a years-delayed radio flare from an unusually slow-evolved tidal disruption event

SDSS J1115+0544 is a unique low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) galaxy with energetic ultraviolet (UV), optical and mid-infrared outbursts occurring in its nucleus. We present the results from an analysis of multi-wavelength photometric and radio follow-up observations covering a period of ~9 years since its discovery. We find that following a luminosity plateau of ~500 days, the UV/optical emission has decayed back to the pre-outburst level, suggesting that the nuclear outburst might be caused by a stellar tidal disruption event (TDE). In this case, SDSS J1115+0544 could be an unusually slow-evolved optical TDE with longest rise and decline time-scales ever found. Three years later than the optical peak, a delayed radio brightening was found with a 5.5 GHz luminosity as high as ~1.9x10^39 erg/s. Using a standard equipartition analysis, we find the outflow powering the radio emission was launched at t~1260 days with a velocity of beta<~0.1 and kinetic energy of E_K~>10^50 erg. The delayed radio brightening coupled with the disappearing plateau in the UV/optical light curves is consistent with the scenario involving delayed ejection of an outflow from a state transition in the disk. SDSS J1115+0544 is the first TDE displaying both a short-lived UV/optical plateau emission and a late-time radio brightening. Future radio observations of these TDEs in the post-plateau decay phase will help to establish the connection between outflow launching and changes in accretion rate.

astro-ph.HE

Discovery of a Damped Ly$\alpha$ Absorber in the Circumnuclear Zone of the FeLoBAL Quasar SDSS J083942.11+380526.3

SDSS J083942.11+380526.3 ($z=2.315$) is a FeLoBAL quasar that exhibits visible Balmer absorption lines (H$\alpha$), implying a significant $n=2$ population. The quasar also shows an array of absorption lines, including \oi, \niii, \feii, \mgii, \aliii\, to \civ\ and \nv. The high-ionization absorption lines such as \civ\ and \siiv\ are revealed by slightly blueshifted BAL troughs. The resonance doublets such as \mgii\ and \aliii\ are saturated but did not reached zero intensity which indicates that the BLR is partially covered. Overall, however, the absorption is predominantly from low-ionization \feii\ lines, emitted from ground and excited states up to at least 3.814 eV. This implies that the absorbing gas spans the hydrogen ionization front and extends into the partially ionized zone where neutral hydrogen is certainly present. Notably, the hydrogen line spectrum of the quasar shows no signature of expected Ly$\alpha$ absorption. Instead, the line spectrum shows an unusual Ly$\alpha$ emission characterized by a fully filled emission line spectrum which is a composite of a strong narrow core superposed on a weak broad base. Taking into account the effect of partial covering to BLR, we have extracted a strong DLA trough in Ly$\alpha$ emission region. To fit the spectrum, we performed photoionized model calculations and compared them to the observations. We found that photoionization modeling using CLOUDY can successfully reproduce the main characteristics of the quasar spectrum, and the predicted neutral hydrogen column density arising from the clouds responsible for the low-ionization absorption provides a good match to the extracted DLA trough. This indicates that both the DLA and the low-ionization absorption arise from the same medium that is roughly collocated with the dusty torus.

astro-ph.GA

On the Origin of the Strong Optical Variability of Emission-line Galaxies

Emission-line galaxies (ELGs) are crucial in understanding the formation and evolution of galaxies, while little is known about their variability. Here we report the study on the optical variability of a sample of ELGs selected in the COSMOS field, which has narrow-band observations in two epochs separated by $\gtrsim$ 12 years. This sample was observed with Suprime-Cam (SC) and Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) on the $Subaru$ telescope in NB816 and $i'/i$ bands, respectively. After carefully removing the wing effect of a narrow-band filter, we check the optical variability in a sample of 181 spectroscopically confirmed ELGs. We find that 0 (0/68) Ha emitters, 11.9% (5/42) [OIII] emitters, and 0 (0/71) [OII] emitters show significant variability ($|\Delta m_{NB}| \geq 3\,\sigma_{\Delta m_{NB,AGN}} = 0.20\, mag$) in the two-epoch narrow-band observations. We investigate the presence of active galactic nucleus (AGN) in this variable ELG (var-ELG) sample with three methods, including X-ray luminosity, mid-infrared activity, and radio-excess. We find zero bright AGN in this var-ELG sample, but cannot rule out the contribution from faint AGN. We find that SNe could also dominate the variability of the var-ELG sample. The merger morphology shown in the HST/F814W images of all the var-ELG sample is in agreement with the enhancement of star formation, i.e., the SNe activity.

astro-ph.GA

Mid-InfraRed Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG). II. Optical Spectroscopic Follow-up

Infrared echo has proven to be an effective means to discover transient accretion events of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), such as tidal disruption events (TDEs) and changing-look active galactic nuclei (AGNs), in dusty circumnuclear environments. To explore the dusty populations of SMBH transient events, we have constructed a large sample of Mid-infrared Outbursts in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG) and performed multiwavelength observations. Here we present the results of multiepoch spectroscopic follow-up observations of a subsample of 54 objects spanning a time scale of 4 yr. Emission-line variability was detected in 22 of them with either emergence or enhancement of broad Balmer emission lines in comparison with pre-outburst spectra. Coronal lines, HeIIλ4686 and Bowen line NIIIλ4640 appeared in the spectra of nine,seven and two sources, respectively. These results suggest that MIRONG is a mixed bag of different transient sources. We have tentatively classified them into different subclass according to their spectral evolution and light curves. Two sources have been in a steady high broad Hα flux up to the latest observation and might be turn-on AGNs. Broad lines faded out in the remaining sources, indicating a transient ionizing source ignited by TDE or sporadic gas accretion. Thirty-one sources do not show noticeable spectral change with respect to their pre-outburst spectra. They have a statistically redder MIR color and lower MIR luminosity of the outbursts,which are consistent with heavily obscured events.

astro-ph.GA

Evidence of a tidal disruption event in GSN 069 from the abnormal carbon and nitrogen abundance ratio

GSN 069 is an ultra-soft X-ray active galactic nucleus that previously exhibited a huge X-ray outburst and a subsequent long-term decay. It has recently presented X-ray quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs). We report the detection of strong nitrogen lines but weak or undetectable carbon lines in its far ultraviolet spectrum. With a detailed photoionization model, we use the C IV/N IV] ratio and other ratios between nitrogen lines to constrain the [C/N] abundance of GSN 069 to be from -3.33 to -1.91. We argue that a partially disrupted red giant star can naturally explain the abnormal C/N abundance in the UV spectrum, while the surviving core orbiting the black hole might produce the QPEs.

astro-ph.GA

Mrk 1239: a Type-2 Counterpart of Narrow-line Seyfert-1?

We present new spectrophotometric and spectropolarimetric observations of Mrk 1239, one of the 8 prototypes that defines type-1 narrow-line Seyfert galaxies (NLS1s). Unlike the other typical NLS1s though, a high degree of polarization ($P\sim$5.6%) and red optical-IR ($g-W_4$ = 12.35) colors suggest that Mrk 1239 is more similar to type-2 active galactic nuclei like NGC 1068. Detailed analysis of spectral energy distribution in the UV-optical-IR yields two components from the nucleus: a direct and transmitted component that is heavily obscured ($E_{B-V} \approx 1.6$), and another indirect and scattered one with mild extinction ($E_{B-V} \sim$ 0.5). Such a two-light-paths scenario is also found in previous reports based on the X-ray data. Comparison of emission lines and the detection of He\,{\footnotesize I}*$λ$10830 BAL at [-3000,-1000] km s$^{-1}$ indicates that the obscuring clouds are at physical scale between the sublimation radius and that of the narrow emission line regions. The potential existence of powerful outflows is found as both the obscurer and scatterer are outflowing. Similar to many other type-2s, jet-like structure in the radio band is found in Mrk 1239, perpendicular to the polarization angle, suggesting polar scattering. We argue that Mrk 1239 is very probably a type-2 counterpart of NLS1s. The identification of 1 out of 8 prototype NLS1s as a type-2 counterpart implies that there can be a substantial amount of analogs of Mrk 1239 misidentified as type-1s in the optical band. Properties of these misidentified objects are going to be explored in our future works.

astro-ph.GA

Beyond Camera Motion Blur Removing: How to Handle Outliers in Deblurring

Camera motion deblurring is an important low-level vision task for achieving better imaging quality. When a scene has outliers such as saturated pixels, the captured blurred image becomes more difficult to restore. In this paper, we propose a novel method to handle camera motion blur with outliers. We first propose an edge-aware scale-recurrent network (EASRN) to conduct deblurring. EASRN has a separate deblurring module that removes blur at multiple scales and an upsampling module that fuses different input scales. Then a salient edge detection network is proposed to supervise the training process and constraint the edges restoration. By simulating camera motion and adding various light sources, we can generate blurred images with saturation cutoff. Using the proposed data generation method, our network can learn to deal with outliers effectively. We evaluate our method on public test datasets including the GoPro dataset, Kohler's dataset and Lai's dataset. Both objective evaluation indexes and subjective visualization show that our method results in better deblurring quality than other state-of-the-art approaches.

eess.IV

Mid-InfraRed Outburst in Nearby Galaxies (MIRONG) I: Sample Selection and Characterization

The optical time-domain astronomy has grown rapidly in the past decade but the dynamic infrared sky is rarely explored. Aiming to construct a sample of mid-infrared outburst in nearby galaxies (MIRONG), we have conducted a systematical search of low-redshift ($z<0.35$) SDSS spectroscopic galaxies that have experienced recent MIR flares using their Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) light curves. A total of 137 galaxies have been selected by requiring a brightening amplitude of 0.5 magnitude in at least one WISE band with respect to their quiescent phases. Only a small faction (10.9%) has corresponding optical flares. Except for the four supernova (SNe) in our sample, the MIR luminosity of remaining sources ($L_{\rm 4.6μm}>10^{42}~\rm erg~s^{-1}$) are markedly brighter than known SNe and their physical locations are very close to the galactic center (median <0.1"). Only four galaxies are radio-loud indicating that synchrotron radiation from relativistic jets could contribute MIR variability. We propose that these MIR outburst are dominated by the dust echoes of transient accretion onto supermassive black holes, such as tidal disruption events (TDEs) and turn-on (changing-look) AGNs. Moreover, the inferred peak MIR luminosity function is generally consistent with the X-ray and optical TDEs at high end albeit with large uncertainties. Our results suggest that a large population of transients have been overlooked by optical surveys, probably due to dust obscuration or intrinsically optical weakness. Thus, a search in the infrared band is crucial for us to obtain a panoramic picture of nuclear outburst. The multiwavength follow-up observations of the MIRONG sample are in progress and will be presented in a series of subsequent papers.

astro-ph.GA

A Mid-infrared Flare in the Active Galaxy MCG-02-04-026: Dust Echo of a Nuclear Transient Event

We report the discovery of a mid-infrared (MIR) flare using WISE data in the center of the nearby Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-02-04-026. The MIR flare began in the first half of 2014, peaked around the end of 2015, and faded in 2017. During these years, energy more than $7\times10^{50}$ erg was released in the infrared, and the flare's MIR color was generally turning red. We detected neither optical nor ultraviolet (UV) variation corresponding to the MIR flare based on available data. We explained the MIR flare using a dust echo model in which the radiative transfer is involved. The MIR flare can be well explained as thermal reradiation from dust heated by UV-optical photons of a primary nuclear transient event. Although the transient event was not seen directly due to dust obscuration, we can infer that it may produce a total energy of at least $\sim10^{51}$ erg, most of which was released in less than $\sim$3 years. The nature of the transient event could be a stellar tidal disruption event by the central supermassive black hole (SMBH), or a sudden enhancement of the existing accretion flow onto the SMBH, or a supernova which was particularly bright.

astro-ph.GA

X-ray spectral shape variations in changing-look Seyfert galaxy SDSSJ155258+273728

We analyze the X-ray, optical, and mid-infrared data of a "changing-look" Seyfert galaxy \sdssj15 at $z\simeq0.086$. Over a period of one decade (2009 - 2018), its broad H$α$ line intensity increased by a factor of $\sim$4. Meanwhile, the X-ray emission in 2014 as observed by \chandra\ was about five times brighter than that in 2010 by {\it Suzaku}, and the corresponding emissions in V-band, mid-infrared W1 band brighten by $\sim$ 0.18, 0.32 mag, respectively. Moreover, the absorption in X-rays is moderate and stable, i.e. ${\rm N_{H}}\sim 10^{21} {\rm cm^{-2}}$, but the X-ray spectrum becomes harder in the 2014 \chandra\ bright state (i.e. photon index $Γ= 1.52^{+0.06}_{-0.06}$) than that of the 2010 \suzaku\ low state ($Γ=2.03^{+0.22}_{-0.21}$). With an Eddington ratio being lower than a few percent, the inner region of the accretion disk in \sdssj15\ is likely a hot accretion flow. We then compile from literature the X-ray data of "changing-look" AGNs, and find that they generally follow the well-established "V"-shaped correlation in AGNs, that is, above a critical turn-over luminosity the X-ray spectra soften with the increasing luminosity, and below that luminosity the trend is reversed in a way of "harder when brighter". This presents a direct evidence that CL-AGNs have distinctive changes in not only the optical spectral type, but also the X-ray spectral shape. The similarity in the X-ray spectral evolution between CL-AGNs and black hole X-ray binaries indicates that the observed CL-AGNs phenomena may relate to the state transition in accretion physics.

astro-ph.GA

A Deeply Buried Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 Nucleus Uncovered in Scattered Light

We present spectropolarimetric and spectrophotometric observations of the peculiar active galactic nucleus (AGN) SDSS J120300.19+162443.7 (hereafter J1203+1624) at $z=0.1656$. Its optical total flux spectra clearly show broad emission lines (BELs) in H$α$ and H$β$. After removal of narrow emission lines (NELs), the full width at half maximum of the lorentzian BEL is $FWHM_{\rm BEL} \approx 1,270$ km s$^{-1}$, fulfilling the conventional definition of a narrow line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) galaxy. However, its NELs are unprecedentedly strong when compared to type 1AGNs. This, together with its large MIR excess ($g-W_4 = 13.172$ mag), implies that the observer and the narrow emission line region (NELR) might see a different ionization continuum. Our optical spectropolarimetry confirms its type 2 nature by detecting a polarized blue continuum and Balmer BELs ($FWHM_{\rm Polarized~BEL} \approx 1,183$ km s$^{-1}$), with a high polarization degree of $> 20$% in the blue wing. The mass and Eddington rate of the central black hole is estimated based on both transmitted and scattered AGN radiation, which is $M_{\bullet} < 2.9 \times 10^7 M_\odot$ and $L_{\rm bol}/L_{\rm Edd} > 1.5$. Severe extinction of the AGN emission also enables a clear view of the compact host galaxy. Discovery of J1203+1624 suggests that NLS1 follows AGN unfication scheme, studying of its analogs could blaze a new trail for exploring the connection between black hole growth and star formation in the host galaxy. Interesting features of J1203+1624 like the peculiar NELs, inflowing scattering clouds within sublimation radius are worth detailed follow-ups in the future.

astro-ph.GA

Fast Inflow Directly Feeding Black Hole Accretion Disk in Quasars

Quasars are high-luminosity active galactic nuclei believed to be powered by accretion of interstellar matter onto a super-massive black hole (SMBH) therein. Most of the observed energy is released in an accretion disk of inspiralling gas surrounding the SMBH. An enormous amount of fueling material is expected to be transported inwards. However, basic questions remain unanswered as to whether and how the accretion disks are supplied with external gas, since no disk-feeding inflow has hitherto been observed clearly. Here we report the discovery of highly redshifted broad absorption lines arising from neutral hydrogen and helium atoms in a small sample of quasars. Their absorption troughs show a broad range of Doppler velocities from zero extending continuously inward up to as high as $\sim 5,000$ km s$^{-1}$. We thus see through streams of cold gas moving with a radially inward velocity component that spans an immense gradient---a result of gravitational acceleration by the central SMBH. Extensive photo-ionization modeling for the archetypical object SDSS J103516.20+142200.6 indicates the inflowing gas to be dense, thick and moderately ionized, with a characteristic distance to the SMBH of $\sim 1,000$ gravitational radii, possibly overlapping or close to the outer accretion disk. Our results present the first compelling evidence for the long-sought inflow directly feeding quasars' accretion disks with external materials, likely originating from the dusty torus at a parsec scale. Our approach provides a new tool to probe the bulk of the so far elusive fueling inflows in quasars. Their studies may help address some of the fundamental questions concerning accretion physics, the onset and sustainment of quasar activity, and the SMBH growth at centers of most galaxies.

astro-ph.GA

Initial results from a systematic search for changing-look active galactic nuclei selected via mid-infrared variability

Changing look active-galatic-nuclei (CL AGNs) can yield considerable insight into accretion physics as well as the co-evolution of black holes and their host galaxies. A large sample of these CL AGNs is essential to achieve the latter goal. We propose an effective method to select CL candidates from spectroscopic quasar catalogs using the mid-infrared (MIR) variability information derived from ALL-WISE/NEOWISE data releases. Our primary selection criteria include both a large amplitude flux variation and a transition of MIR color from an AGN to a normal galaxy. A pilot spectroscopic follow-up of 7 candidates among about 300 candidates selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey low-redshift (z<0.5) AGN sample results in 6 new turn-off CL AGNs. We expect to obtain hundreds of CL AGNs once full spectroscopic follow-up of the sample is carried out.

astro-ph.GA