arXiv subjects

F. Xu

Publications and source records attributed to F. Xu.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The 10-15 GHz radio continuum survey of the Galactic Plane with SKAO

Star formation emerges from the complex interplay between gravity, turbulence, magnetic fields, and stellar feedback, all of which vary across spatial scales and Galactic environments. Over the past decades, extensive multiwavelength surveys of the Galactic Plane have progressively unveiled this complexity. Far-infrared and sub-millimetre surveys have identified and characterized tens of thousands of star-forming regions, revealing their mass, temperature, and evolutionary stage. Complementary molecular-line surveys, spanning several CO transitions and isotopologues, have mapped the gas kinematics from giant molecular clouds down to sub-parsec structures. The advent of interferometers such as ALMA has revolutionized this field, enabling systematic studies of gas dynamics, fragmentation, and collapse in dense clumps at scales of a few thousand astronomical units. At the same time, mid-infrared and radio surveys at frequencies 0.8 <= nu <= 5 GHz have traced ionised gas associated with the earliest and latest phases of massive-star evolution, including thermal radio jets, hypercompact and ultracompact HII regions, supernova remnants, planetary nebulae, and evolved massive stars. Yet, a uniform, Galaxy-wide census of ionised structures and feedback processes remains elusive. A transformational leap forward requires a sensitive, high-resolution radio survey of the Galactic Plane at 10-15 GHz, capable of resolving physical scales smaller than 0.05 pc at distances up to 20 kpc. This is precisely the goal of the SKA-Mid Galactic Plane survey, which will, with its unprecedented sensitivity, angular resolution, and mapping speed, provide the first panoptic view of ionised gas and stellar feedback across the Milky Way.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2025

Infrared emission from $z \sim 6.5$ quasar host galaxies: a direct estimate of dust physical properties

Quasars at the dawn of Cosmic Time ($z>6$) are fundamental probes to investigate the early co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxy. Nevertheless, their infrared spectral energy distribution remains at the present time poorly constrained, due to the limited photometric coverage probing the far-infrared wavelength range where the dust modified black-body is expected to peak ($\sim80$ $\mathrm{\mu m}$). Here we present a study of the high-frequency dust emission via a dedicated ALMA Band 8 ($\sim$400 GHz) campaign targeting 11 quasar host galaxies at $6<z<7$. Combined with archival observations in other ALMA bands, this program enables a detailed characterization of their infrared emission, allowing for the derivation of dust masses ($M_{d}$), dust emissivity indexes ($\beta$), dust temperatures ($T_{d}$), infrared luminosities ($L_{IR}$), and associated star formation rates (SFRs). Our analysis confirms that dust temperature is on average higher in this sample (34-65 K) if compared to local main-sequence galaxies' values, and that this finding can be linked to the increased star formation efficiency we derive in our work, as also suggested by the [CII]$_{158\mu m}$ deficit. Most remarkably, we note that the average value of $T_d$ of this sample doesn't differ from the one that is observed in luminous, ultra-luminous and hyper-luminous infrared galaxies at different redshifts that show no signs of hosting a quasar. Finally, our findings suggest that the presence of a bright AGN does not significantly bias the derived infrared properties, although further high-frequency, high-spatial resolution observations might reveal more subtle impacts on sub-kiloparsec scales.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Revisiting the energy distribution and formation rate of CHIME fast radio bursts

Based on the first CHIME/FRB catalogue, three volume-limited samples of fast radio bursts (FRBs) are built, with samples 1, 2, and 3 corresponding to a fluence cut of 5, 3, and 1, respectively. The Lynden-Bell's c$^-$ method was applied to study their energy function and event rate evolution with redshift ($z$). Using the non-parametric Kendall's $\tau$ statistics, it is found that the FRB energy ($E$) strongly evolves with redshift as $E(z)\varpropto(1+z)^{1.24}$ for sample 1, $E(z)\varpropto(1+z)^{0.98}$ for sample 2, and $E(z)\varpropto(1+z)^{1.99}$ for sample 3. After removing the redshift dependence, the local energy distributions of the three samples can be well described by a broken power-law form with a broken energy of $\sim10^{40} \rm erg$. Meanwhile, the redshift distributions of samples 1 and 2 are identical but different from that of sample 3. Interestingly, we find that the event rates of samples 1 and 2 are independent of redshift, and sample 3 decreases as a single power-law form with an index of -2.41. The local event rates of the three samples of CHIME FRBs are found to be consistently close to $\sim 10^4\rm{\,Gpc^{-3}yr^{-1}}$, which is comparable with some previous estimates. In addition, we notice that the event rate of sample 3 FRBs with lower energies not only exceeds the star formation rate at the lower redshifts but also always declines with the increase in redshift. We suggest that the excess of FRB rates compared with the star formation rate at low redshift mainly results from the low-energy FRBs that could originate in the older stellar populations.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

ATOMS: ALMA Three-millimeter Observations of Massive Star-forming regions -XIII. Ongoing triggered star formation within clump-fed scenario found in the massive ($\sim1500$ $\rm M_\odot$) clump

Whether ionization feedback triggers the formation of massive stars is highly debated. Using ALMA 3 mm observations with a spatial resolution of $\sim 0.05$ pc and a mass sensitivity of 1.1 $\rm M_\odot$ beam$^{-1}$ at 20 K, we investigate the star formation and gas flow structures within the ionizing feedback-driven structure, a clump-scale massive ($\gtrsim 1500$ $\rm M_\odot$) bright-rimmed cloud (BRC) associated with IRAS 18290-0924. This BRC is bound only if external compression from ionized gas is considered. A small-scale ($\lesssim1$ pc) age sequence along the direction of ionizing radiation is revealed for the embedded cores and protostars, which suggests triggered star formation via radiation-driven implosion (RDI). Furthermore, filamentary gas structures converge towards the cores located in the BRC's center, indicating that these filaments are fueling mass towards cores. The local core-scale mass infall rate derived from H$^{13}$CO$^+$ $J=1-0$ blue profile is of the same order of magnitude as the filamentary mass inflow rate, approximately 1 $\rm M_\odot$ kyr$^{-1}$. A photodissociation region (PDR) covering the irradiated clump surface is detected in several molecules, such as CCH, HCO$^+$, and CS whereas the spatial distribution stratification of these molecules is indistinct. CCH spectra of the PDR possibly indicate a photoevaporation flow leaving the clump surface with a projected velocity of $\sim2$ km s$^{-1}$. Our new observations show that RDI accompanied by a clump-fed process is operating in this massive BRC. Whether this combined process works in other massive BRCs is worth exploring with dedicated surveys.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

Enhanced optoelectronic performance and photogating effect in quasi-one-dimensional BiSeI wires

Quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) materials are a newly arising topic in low-dimensional researches. As a result of reduced dimensionality and enhanced anisotropy, the quasi-1D structure gives rise to novel properties and promising applications such as photodetectors. However, it remains an open question whether performance crossover will occur when the channel material is downsized. Here we report on the fabrication and testing of photodetectors based on exfoliated quasi-1D BiSeI thin wires. Compared with the device on bulk crystal, a significantly enhanced photoresponse is observed, which is manifested by a series of performance parameters, including ultrahigh responsivity (7 x 10$^4$ A W$^{-1}$), specific detectivity (2.5 x 10$^{14}$ Jones) and external quantum efficiency (1.8 x 10$^7$%) when $V_{\textrm {ds}}$ = 3 V, $\lambda$ = 515 nm and $P$ = 0.01 mW cm$^{-2}$. The conventional photoconductive effect is unlikely to account for such a superior photoresponse, which is ultimately understood in terms of the increased specific surface area and the photogating effect caused by trapping states. This work provides a perspective for the modulation of optoelectronic properties and performance in quasi-1D materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Ultralow-power all-optical switching via a chiral Mach-Zehnder interferometer

All-optical switching increasingly plays an important role in optical information processing. However, simultaneous achievement of ultralow power consumption, broad bandwidth and high extinction ratio remains challenging. We experimentally demonstrate an ultralow-power all-optical switching by exploiting chiral interaction between light and optically active material in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). We achieve switching extinction ratio of 20.0(3.8) and 14.7(2.8) dB with power cost of 66.1(0.7) and 1.3(0.1) fJ/bit, respectively. The bandwidth of our all-optical switching is about 4.2 GHz. Our theoretical analysis shows that the switching bandwidth can, in principle, exceed 110 GHz. Moreover, the switching has the potential to be operated at few-photon level. Our all-optical switching exploits a chiral MZI made of linear optical components. It excludes the requisite of high-quality optical cavity or large optical nonlinearity, thus greatly simplifying realization. Our scheme paves the way towards ultralow-power and ultrafast all-optical information processing.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2016

Understanding and Controlling Water Stability of MOF-74

Metal organic framework (MOF) materials in general, and MOF-74 in particular, have promising properties for many technologically important processes. However, their instability under humid conditions severely restricts practical use. We show that this instability and the accompanying reduction of the CO$_2$ uptake capacity of MOF-74 under humid conditions originate in the water dissociation reaction H$_2$O$\rightarrow$OH+H at the metal centers. After this dissociation, the OH groups coordinate to the metal centers, explaining the reduction in the MOF's CO$_2$ uptake capacity. This reduction thus strongly depends on the catalytic activity of MOF-74 towards the water dissociation reaction. We further show that-while the water molecules themselves only have a negligible effect on the crystal structure of MOF-74-the OH and H products of the dissociation reaction significantly weaken the MOF framework and lead to the observed crystal structure breakdown. With this knowledge, we propose a way to suppress this particular reaction by modifying the MOF-74 structure to increase the water dissociation energy barrier and thus control the stability of the system under humid conditions.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Over-Bias Light Emission due to Higher Order Quantum Noise of a Tunnel Junction

Understanding tunneling from an atomically sharp tip to a metallic surface requires to account for interactions on a nanoscopic scale. Inelastic tunneling of electrons generates emission of photons, whose energies intuitively should be limited by the applied bias voltage. However, experiments by Schull et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 057401 (2009)] indicate that more complex processes involving the interaction of electrons with plasmon polaritons lead to photon emission characterized by over-bias energies. We propose a model of this observation in analogy to dynamical Coulomb blockade, originally developed for treating the electronic environment in mesoscopic circuits. We explain the experimental finding quantitatively by the correlated tunneling of two electrons interacting with an LRC circuit modeling the local plasmon-polariton mode. To explain the over-bias emission, the non-Gaussian statistics of the tunneling dynamics of the electrons is essential.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Room-temperature delayed giant magnetodielectric effects observed in Bi4Fe2TiO12 film

This letter reports our experimental results on magnetic-field-induced aftereffects in solution derived Bi4Fe2TiO12 film, in which e' decreases as much as 600 times after treated in a 5T magnetic field as that of the pristine one. The phenomena are explained by an unusual spin-orbital coupling in film, where strong magnetic field provides drive force for spin polarized electrons of electrode to enter film, so as to form a ferromagnetic orbital state, increase the relaxation time of defect dipoles and then produce giant magnetodielectric effects. This process is reversible just by applying a opposite 0.5T magnetic field. Our findings have potential applications on magnetic fabrication of nanopatterns somehow to evade nanohazard, as well as on integraged phononic or photonic crystals on chip.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv1999

EGRET Observations of the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Emission in Orion: Analysis Through Cycle 6

We present a study of the high-energy diffuse emission observed toward Orion by the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. The total exposure by EGRET in this region has increased by more than a factor of two since a previous study. A simple model for the diffuse emission adequately fits the data; no significant point sources are detected in the region studied ($l = 195^\circ$ to $220^\circ$ and $b = -25^\circ to -10^\circ$) in either the composite dataset or in two separate groups of EGRET viewing periods considered. The gamma-ray emissivity in Orion is found to be $(1.65 \pm 0.11) \times 10^{-26} {s sr}^{-1}$ for E > 100 MeV, and the differential emissivity is well-described as a combination of contributions from cosmic-ray electrons and protons with approximately the local density. The molecular mass calibrating ratio is $N(H_2)/W_{CO} = (1.35 \pm 0.15) \times 10^{20} cm^{-2} (K km/s)^{-1}$.

astro-ph↗