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De-Hua Wang

Publications and source records attributed to De-Hua Wang.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

On Ultra-long Period (53.8 min) Pulsar ASKAP J1935+2148: Coherent Radio Emission Triggered by Local Superstrong Magnetic Reconnection

The eight ultra-long period pulsars (ULPPs) in radio bands have been discovered recently, e.g., ASKAP J1935+2148 with a spin period of 53.8\,min, which are much longer than those of normal pulsars, spanning from 0.016\,s to 23.5\,s, however the origins, spin evolutions and emission mechanisms of these sources are still puzzling. We investigate how the ultra-long period of ASKAP J1935+2148 is evolved by the braking of relativistic particle wind, in a time scale of about 0.1 - 1 Myr, from a normal pulsar with local superstrong magnetic fields. In addition, it is noticed that the ULPPs in the period versus period derivative diagram are much below the ``death line", implying their different characteristics from the normal pulsars. Five sources (including ASKAP J1935+2148) in total eight ULPPs share the rotational energy loss rates to be lower than their respective radio emission luminosities, a phenomenon that can be accounted for by the sustainable radio bursts induced through the reconnection of locally concentrated magnetic field lines.The diversity and complexity of ULPP radio emissions should be closely related to the presence of magnetic reconnection rather than rotational powered discharges in the gaps. Furthermore, it is suggested that the coherent radio emissions of pulsars may have two origins, one from the rotation-powered electric voltage that accounts for the normal pulsar phenomena and the other from the magnetic reconnection-induced continual radio bursts that account for the ULPP observations.

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The Minimum Variation Timescales of X-ray bursts from SGR J1935+2154

The minimum variation timescale (MVT) of soft gamma-ray repeaters can be an important probe to estimate the emission region in pulsar-like models, as well as the Lorentz factor and radius of the possible relativistic jet in gamma-ray burst (GRB)-like models, thus revealing their progenitors and physical mechanisms. In this work, we systematically study the MVTs of hundreds of X-ray bursts (XRBs) from SGR J1935+2154 observed by {\it Insight}-HXMT, GECAM and Fermi/GBM from July 2014 to Jan 2022 through the Bayesian Block algorithm. We find that the MVTs peak at $\sim$ 2 ms, corresponding to a light travel time size of about 600 km, which supports the magnetospheric origin in pulsar-like models. The shock radius and the Lorentz factor of the jet are also constrained in GRB-like models. Interestingly, the MVT of the XRB associated with FRB 200428 is $\sim$ 70 ms, which is longer than that of most bursts and implies its special radiation mechanism. Besides, the median of MVTs is 7 ms, shorter than the median MVTs of 40 ms and 480 ms for short GRBs or long GRBs, respectively. However, the MVT is independent of duration, similar to GRBs. Finally, we investigate the energy dependence of MVT and suggest that there is a marginal evidence for a power-law relationship like GRBs but the rate of variation is at least about an order of magnitude smaller. These features may provide an approach to identify bursts with a magnetar origin.

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Pulsar and Magnetar Navigation with Fermi/GBM and GECAM

The determination of the absolute and relative position of a spacecraft is critical for its operation, observations, data analysis, scientific studies, as well as deep space exploration in general. A spacecraft that can determine its own absolute position autonomously may perform more than that must rely on transmission solutions. In this work, we report an absolute navigation accuracy of $\sim$ 20 km using 16-day Crab pulsar data observed with $Fermi$ Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM). In addition, we propose a new method with the inverse process of the triangulation for joint navigation using repeated bursts like that from the magnetar SGR J1935+2154 observed by the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) and GBM.

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Discovery of the linear energy-dependence of the spectral lag of X-ray bursts from SGR J1935+2154

Spectral lag of the low-energy photons with respect to the high-energy ones is a common astrophysical phenomenon (such as Gamma-ray bursts and the Crab pulsar) and may serve as a key probe to the underlying radiation mechanism. However, spectral lag in keV range of the magnetar bursts has not been systematically studied yet. In this work, we perform a detailed spectral lag analysis with the Li-CCF method for SGR J1935+2154 bursts observed by {\it Insight}-HXMT, GECAM and Fermi/GBM from July 2014 to Jan 2022. We discover that the spectral lags of about 61\% (non-zero significance >1$σ$) bursts from SGR J1935+2154 are linearly dependent on the photon energy ($E$) with $t_{\rm lag}(E)=α(E/{\rm keV})+C$, which may be explained by a linear change of the temperature of the blackbody-emitting plasma with time. The distribution of the slope ($α$) approximately follows a Gaussian function with mean and standard deviation of 0.02 ms/keV (i.e. high-energy photons arrive earlier) and 0.02 ms/keV, respectively. We also find that the distribution can be well fitted with three Gaussians with mean values of $\sim$ -0.009, 0.013 and 0.039 ms/keV, which may correspond to different origins of the bursts. These spectral lag features may have important implications on the magnetar bursts.

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Evolution of Spin Period and Magnetic Field of the Crab Pulsar: Decay of the Braking Index by the Particle Wind Flow Torque

The evolutions of a neutron star's rotation and magnetic field (B-field) have remained unsolved puzzles for over half a century. We ascribe the rotational braking torques of pulsar to both components, the standard magnetic dipole radiation (MDR) and particle wind flow ( MDR + Wind, hereafter named MDRW), which we apply to the Crab pulsar (B0531 + 21), the only source with a known age and long-term continuous monitoring by radio telescope. Based on the above presumed simple spin-down torques, we obtain the exact analytic solution on the rotation evolution of the Crab pulsar, together with the related outcomes as described below: (1) unlike the constant characteristic B-field suggested by the MDR model, this value for the Crab pulsar increases by a hundred times in 50~kyr while its real B-field has no change; (2) the rotational braking index evolves from $\sim$3 to 1 in the long-term, however, it drops from 2.51 to 2.50 in $\sim$45 years at the present stage, while the particle flow contributes approximately 25% of the total rotational energy loss rate; (3) strikingly, the characteristic age has the maximum limit of $\sim$10 kyr, meaning that it is not always a good indicator of real age. Furthermore, we discussed the evolutionary path of the Crab pulsar from the MDR to the wind domination by comparing it with the possible wind braking candidate pulsar PSR J1734-3333.

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Search for Quasi-Periodical Oscillations in Precursors of Short and Long Gamma Ray Bursts

The precursors of short and long Gamma Ray Bursts (SGRBs and LGRBs) can serve as probes of their progenitors, as well as shedding light on the physical processes of mergers or core-collapse supernovae. Some models predict the possible existence of Quasi-Periodically Oscillations (QPO) in the precursors of SGRBs. Although many previous studies have performed QPO search in the main emission of SGRBs and LGRBs, so far there was no systematic QPO search in their precursors. In this work, we perform a detailed QPO search in the precursors of SGRBs and LGRBs detected by Fermi/GBM from 2008 to 2019 using the power density spectrum (PDS) in frequency domain and Gaussian processes (GP) in time domain. We do not find any convinced QPO signal with significance above 3 $σ$, possibly due to the low fluxes of precursors. Finally, the PDS continuum properties of both the precursors and main emissions are also studied for the first time, and no significant difference is found in the distributions of the PDS slope for precursors and main emissions in both SGRBs and LGRBs.

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Luminosity distribution of fast radio bursts from CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 by means of the updated Macquart relation

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely strong radio flares lasting several micro- to milliseconds and come from unidentified objects at cosmological distances, most of which are only seen once. Based on recently published data in the CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 in the frequency bands 400-800 MHz, we analyze 125 apparently singular FRBs with low dispersion measure (DM) and find that the distribution of their luminosity follows a lognormal form according to statistical tests. In our luminosity measurement, the FRB distance is estimated by using the Macquart relation which was obtained for 8 localized FRBs, and we find it still applicable for 18 sources after adding the latest 10 new localized FRBs. In addition, we test the validity of the luminosity distribution up to the Macquart relation and find that the lognormal form feature decreases as the uncertainty increases. Moreover, we compare the luminosity of these apparent non-repeaters with that of the previously observed 10 repeating FRBs also at low DM, noting that they belong to different lognormal distributions with the mean luminosity of non-repeaters being two times greater than that of repeaters. Therefore, from the two different lognormal distributions, different mechanisms for FRBs can be implied.

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Statistical tests of young radio pulsars with/without supernova remnants: implying two origins of neutron stars

The properties of the young pulsars and their relations to the supernova remnants (SNRs) have been the interesting topics. At present, 383 SNRs in the Milky Way galaxy have been published, which are associated with 64 radio pulsars and 46 pulsars with high energy emissions. However, we noticed that 630 young radio pulsars with spin periods of less than half a second have been not yet observed the SNRs surrounding or nearby them, which arises a question of that could the two types of young radio pulsars with/without SNRs hold distinctive characteristics? Here, we employ the statistical tests on the two groups of young radio pulsars with (52) and without (630) SNRs to reveal if they share different origins. Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) and Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon (M-W-W) tests indicate that the two samples have the different distributions with parameters of spin period ($P$), derivative of spin period ($\dot P$), surface magnetic field strength ($B$), and energy loss rate ($\dot E$). Meanwhile, the cumulative number ratio between the pulsars with and without SNRs at the different spindown ages decreases significantly after $\rm10-20\,Kyr$. So we propose that the existence of the two types of supernovae (SNe), corresponding to their SNR lifetimes, which can be roughly ascribed to the low-energy and high-energy SNe. Furthermore, the low-energy SNe may be formed from the $\rm8-12\,M_{\odot}$ progenitor, e.g., possibly experiencing the electron capture, while the main sequence stars of $\rm12-25\,M_{\odot}$ may produce the high-energy SNe probably by the iron core collapse.

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Statistical properties of fast radio bursts elucidate their origins: magnetars are favoured over gamma-ray bursts

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are extremely strong radio flares lasting several milliseconds, most of which come from unidentified objects at a cosmological distance. They can be apparently repeating or not. In this paper, we analyzed 18 repeaters and 12 non-repeating FRBs observed in the frequency bands of 400-800 MHz from CHIME. We investigated the distributions of FRB isotropic-equivalent radio luminosity, considering the K correction. Statistically, the luminosity distribution can be better fitted by Gaussian form than by power-law. Based on the above results, together with the observed FRB event rate, pulse duration, and radio luminosity, FRB origin models are evaluated and constrained such that the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be excluded for the non-repeaters while magnetars or neutron stars (NSs) emitting the supergiant pulses are preferred for the repeaters. We also found the necessity of a small FRB emission beaming solid angle (about 0.1 sr) from magnetars that should be considered, and/or the FRB association with soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) may lie at a low probability of about 10%. Finally, we discussed the uncertainty of FRB luminosity caused by the estimation of the distance that is inferred by the simple relation between the redshift and dispersion measure (DM).

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Fast radio bursts: do repeaters and non-repeaters originate in statistically similar ensembles

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are the short, strong radio pulses lasting several milliseconds. They are subsequently identified, for the most part, as emanating from unknown objects at cosmological distances. At present, over one hundred FRBs have been verified, classified into two groups: repeating bursts (20 samples) and apparently non-repeating bursts (91 samples). Their origins, however, are still hotly debated. Here,we investigate the statistical classifications for the two groups of samples to see if the non-repeating and repeating FRBs have different origins by employing Anderson-Darling (A-D) test and Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon (M-W-W) test. Firstly, by taking the pulse width as a statistical variant, we found that the repeating samples do not follow the Gaussian statistics (may belong to a chi-square distribution), although the overall data and non-repeating group do follow the Gaussian. Meanwhile, to investigate the statistical differences between the two groups, we turn to M-W-W test and notice that the two distributions have different origins. Secondly, we consider the FRB radio luminosity as a statistical variant, and find that both groups of samples can be regarded as the Gaussian distributions under the A-D test, although they have different origins according to M-W-W tests. Therefore, statistically, we can conclude that our classifications of both repeaters and non-repeaters are plausible, that the two FRB classes have different origins, or each has experienced distinctive phases or been subject to its own physical processes.

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Evolution implications of neutron star magnetic fields: inferred from pulsars and cyclotron lines of HMXBs

The evolution of neutron star (NS) magnetic field (B-field) has long been an important topic, which is still not yet settled down. Here, we analyze the NS B-fields inferred by the cyclotron resonance scattering features (CRSFs) for the high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) and by the magnetic dipole model for the spin-down pulsars. We find that the B-fields of both the 32 NSHMXBs and 28 young pulsars with the supernova remnants follow the log-normal distributions, with the average values of 3.4 * 10^12 G and 4.1 * 10^12 G respectively, which are further verified to come from the same continuous distribution by the statistical tests. These results declaim that the two methods of measuring NS B-fields are reliable for the above two groups of samples. In addition, since the NS-HMXBs have experienced the spin-down phase as the normal pulsars without accretion and then the spin-up phase by accretion, their ages should be about million years (Myrs). Our statistical facts imply that the B-fields of NS-HMXBs have little decayed in their non-accretion spin-down phases of ~ Myrs, as well as in their accretion phases of ~ 0.1Myrs.

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Investigation of the Millisecond Pulsar Origins by their Spin Periods at the Wavebands of Radio, X-Ray, and γ-Ray

To track the formation and evolution links of the millisecond pulsars (MSPs) powered by accretion and rotation in the Galactic field, we investigate the spin period (P) and spin-down power (Edot) distributions of the MSPs observed at the wavebands of radio, X-ray, and γ-ray. We find that all but one (119/120) of the γ-ray MSPs have been detected with the radio signals (radio+γ MSPs); on the contrary, nearly half of the radio MSPs (118/237) have not been detected with γ-rays (radio-only MSPs). In addition, the radio+γ MSPs are shown to be the relative faster and more energetic objects ( ~ 3.28 ms and ~ 4.5 * 10^34 erg s^-1) compared with the radio-only MSPs ( ~ 4.70 ms and ~ 1.0 * 10^34 erg s^-1), while the spin periods of these two MSP populations are compatible with the log-normal distributions by the statistical tests. Most rotation-powered MSPs (RMSPs) with the radio eclipsing (31/34) exhibit the radio+γ signals, which share the faster spin ( ~ 2.78 ms) and larger spin-down power ( ~ 4.1 * 10^34 erg s^-1) distributions than the non-eclipsing ones ( ~ 4.19 ms, ~ 2.4 * 10^34 erg s^-1), implying the radio+γ MSPs to be younger than the radio-only MSPs. It is noticed that the spin distribution of the accretion-powered X-ray MSPs shows a clustering phenomenon around ~ 1.6-2.0 ms, which is not observed in RMSPs, hinting that the RMSPs may experience the multiple possible origins. Particularly, all the three super-fast spinning RMSPs with P ~ 1.4-1.6 ms exhibit the non-eclipsing, and we argue that they may be the distinctive sources formed by the accretion induced collapse (AIC) of white dwarfs.

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The kHz QPOs as a probe of the X-ray color-color diagram and accretion-disk structure for the atoll source 4U 1728-34

We have taken the kHz QPOs as a tool to probe the correlation between the tracks of X-ray color-color diagram (CCD) and magnetosphere-disk positions for the atoll source 4U 1728-34, based on the assumptions that the upper kHz QPO is ascribed to the Keplerian orbital motion and the neutron star (NS) magnetosphere is defined by the dipole magnetic field. We find that from the island to the banana state, the inner accretion disk gradually approaches the NS surface with the radius decreasing from r ~33.0km to ~15.9 km, corresponding to the magnetic field from B(r) ~4.8*10^6 G to ~4.3*10^7 G. In addition, we note the characteristics of some particular radii of magnetosphere-disk -r are: firstly, the whole atoll shape of the CCD links the disk radius range of ~15.9 - 33.0 km, which is just located inside the corotation radius of 4U 1728-34 -r_co ( ~34.4 km), implying that the CCD shape is involved in the NS spin-up state. Secondly, the island and banana states of CCD correspond to the two particular boundaries: (I)-near the corotation radius at r ~27.2 - 33.0 km, where the source lies in the island state; (II)-near the NS surface at r ~15.9 - 22.3 km, where the source lies in both the island and banana states. Thirdly, the vertex of the atoll shape in CCD, where the radiation transition from the hard to soft photons occurs, is found to be near the NS surface at r ~16.4 km. The above results suggest that both the magnetic field and accretion environment are related to the CCD structure of atoll track, where the corotation radius and NS hard surface play the significant roles in the radiation distribution of atoll source.

astro-ph.HE

Correlations between the frequencies of twin kHz QPOs and spins of neutron stars in LMXBs

We investigate the correlation between the frequencies of the twin kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) and the neutron star (NS) spins in low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), based on the data sets of 12 sources with simultaneously detected twin kHz QPOs and NS spins, and find that the histogram of the ratio between the frequency difference of twin kHz QPOs (Δν = ν2 - ν1) and NS spin νs shows a non-uniform distribution with a gap at Δν/νs ~ 0.65. We try to classify the 12 sources into two categories according to this gap: (I) The slow rotators with <νs> ~ 311 Hz, XTE J1807.4-294, 4U 1915-05, IGR J17191-2821, 4U 1702-43, 4U 1728-34 and 4U 0614+09 follow a relation Δν/νs > 0.65; (II) The fast rotators with <νs> ~ 546 Hz, SAX J1808.4-3658, KS 1731-260, Aql X-1, 4U 1636-53, SAX J1750.8-2900 and 4U 1608-52 satisfy the relation Δν/νs < 0.65. However, the linear fittings of Δν versus νs relations of group (I) and (II) are unsatisfactory to ensure any certain correlations. We suggest that this phenomenon may arise from the fact that most measured kHz QPOs and spins satisfy the conditions of 1.1 νs < ν2 < 1300Hz and Δν decreasing with ν2. Apparently, the diversified distribution of Δν/νs refutes the simple beat-frequency model, and the statistical correlations between the twin kHz QPOs and NS spins may arise from the magnetosphere-disk boundary environments, e.g., co-rotation radius and NS radius, that modulate the occurrences of X-ray signals. Furthermore, we also find that the distribution of the ratio of ν2 to ν1 clusters around the value of <ν2/ν1> ~ 3 : 2, which shows no obvious correlation with NS spins.

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Evolution of cross-correlation and time lag of 4U 1735-44 along the branches

We analyze the cross-correlation function between the soft and hard X-rays of atoll source 4U 1735-44 with RXTE data, and find the anti-correlated soft and hard time lags of about hecto-second. On the island state, the observations do not show any obvious correlations, and most observations of banana branch show positive correlation. However, the anti-correlations are detected on the upper banana branch. These results are different from those of Z sources (Cyg X-2, GX 5-1), where the anti-correlation is detected in the low luminosity states, then the lag timescales of both this atoll and Z sources are found to be similar, at the magnitude of several tens to hundreds of seconds. As a comparison, it is noted that the anti-correlated lags of thousand-second have been reported from the several black hole candidates in their intermediate states. Finally, we compare the correspondent results of atoll source 4U 1735-44 with those observed in black hole candidates and Z sources, and the possible origins of the anti-correlated time lags are discussed.

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