arXiv subjects

J. An

Publications and source records attributed to J. An.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Demonstrating CBM Capabilities by $\Lambda$ Baryon Reconstruction in Ni+Ni Collisions with the mCBM Experiment at SIS18 of GSI/FAIR

The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at the upcoming Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is a high-rate fixed-target experiment designed to investigate nuclear matter at extreme baryon densities in relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions. To enable high-statistics measurements of rare probes, CBM is designed to operate at event rates up to 10 MHz. This necessitates the development of fast and radiation-tolerant detectors, self-triggered front-end electronics, a free-streaming data acquisition architecture, and real-time event reconstruction capabilities. Prototype versions and pre-series productions of the CBM detector systems have been deployed in the mini-CBM demonstrator setup mCBM - an experimental precursor comprising sub-components of all major CBM systems, installed at the SIS18 facility of GSI/FAIR within the FAIR Phase-0 program. In 2024, Ni+Ni collisions at a kinetic beam energy of 1.93 AGeV and an average interaction rate of about 250 kHz were successfully recorded. This dataset enables a detailed evaluation of the operational performance of the detector systems as well as the complete CBM data chain, while the reconstruction of rare $\Lambda$ baryons serves as a natural benchmark. This paper presents the first results on $\Lambda$ signal reconstruction with the mCBM experiment, demonstrating the readiness of the detector technologies and the data chain for the upcoming full-scale CBM experiment.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2026

Potentials of axisymmetric razor-thin disks

We investigate the gravitational potentials generated by axisymmetric, razor-thin disks. Within certain limitations, the potential on one side of the disk is shown to be equivalent to the potential produced by a linear mass distribution along the axis perpendicular to the disk. We first establish the connection between two mass distributions that generate the same potential. We then consider all disk surface density profiles that produce the potential equivalent to those generated by linear mass distributions, specifically those defined by the elementary beta distribution and its relatives on the interval $[0,1]$, $[1,\infty)$ or $[0,\infty)$. These families of models are important because the potentials in all cases are given by, at most, a single real quadrature of elementary functions of the coordinates, and furthermore, many cases result in closed-form expressions. The potential of many realistic disks may be constructed from some combinations of these disk models.

physics.class-ph↗

arXiv2026

An energetic dirty fireball detected in soft X-rays

The collapse of massive stars drives explosions that power relativistic fireballs. If only a small amount of matter is entrained, such clean fireballs can expand with Lorentz factors $\Gamma> 100$, accounting for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). It has been hypothesized that energetic explosions with more baryon contamination, dubbed ``dirty fireballs'', may exist in nature, but they have not been observed. Here we report the observation of an extragalactic fast X-ray transient, EP241113a, detected by Einstein Probe. Compared to GRBs, it has a similar isotropic energy of $1.4\times 10^{51}$ erg, but significantly lower spectral peak energy. Theoretical modeling of its early X-ray afterglow suggests a relativistic jet with a low Lorentz factor of $\Gamma \sim 20$ aligned close to the line-of-sight, signifying the prototype of a dirty fireball.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Discovery and Analysis of Afterglows from Poorly Localised GRBs with the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) All-sky Survey

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), particularly those detected by wide-field instruments such as the Fermi/GBM, pose a challenge for optical follow-up due to their large initial localisation regions, leaving many GRBs without identified afterglows. The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO), with its wide field of view, dual-site coverage, and robotic rapid-response capability, bridges this gap by rapidly identifying and localising afterglows from alerts issued by space-based facilities, including Fermi, SVOM, Swift, and EP, providing early optical positions for coordinated multiwavelength follow-up. In this paper, we present optical afterglow localisation and multiband follow-up of five Fermi/GBM (240619A, 240910A, 240916A, 241002B, and 241228B) and two MAXI/GSC (240122A and 240225B) triggered long GRBs (LGRBs) discovered by GOTO in 2024. Spectroscopy for six GRBs (no spectroscopic data for GRB 241002B) with VLT/X-shooter and GTC/OSIRIS yields precise redshifts spanning $z\approx0.40-$3.16 and absorption-line diagnostics of host and intervening systems. Radio detections for four events confirm the presence of long-lived synchrotron emission. Prompt-emission analysis with Fermi and MAXI data reveals a spectrally hard population, with two bursts lying $>3\sigma$ above the Amati relation. Although their optical afterglows resemble those of typical LGRBs, the prompt spectra are consistently harder than the LGRBs' average. Consistent modelling of six GOTO-discovered GRB afterglows yields jet half-opening angles of a few degrees and beaming-corrected kinetic energies ($E_{jet}\sim10^{51-52}$)erg, consistent with the canonical LGRB population. These findings suggest that optical discovery of poorly localised GRBs may be subject to observational biases favouring luminous events with high spectral peak energy, while also providing insight into jet microphysics and central engine diversity.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

SVOM GRB 250314A at z $\simeq$ 7.3: an exploding star in the era of reionization

Most long Gamma-ray bursts originate from a rare type of massive stellar explosion. Their afterglows, while rapidly fading, can be initially extremely luminous at optical/near-infrared wavelengths, making them detectable at large cosmological distances. Here we report the detection and observations of GRB 250314A by the SVOM satellite and the subsequent follow-up campaign with the near-infrared afterglow discovery and the spectroscopic measurements of its redshift z $\simeq$ 7.3 . This burst happened when the Universe was only $\sim$ 5% of its current age. We discuss the signature of these rare events within the context of the SVOM operating model, and the ways to optimize their identification with adapted ground follow-up observation strategies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

JWST reveals a supernova following a gamma-ray burst at z $\simeq$ 7.3

The majority of energetic long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are thought to arise from the collapse of massive stars, making them powerful tracers of star formation across cosmic time. Evidence for this origin comes from the presence of supernovae in the aftermath of the GRB event, whose properties in turn link back to those of the collapsing star. In principle, with GRBs we can study the properties of individual stars in the distant universe. Here, we present JWST/NIRCAM observations that detect both the host galaxy and likely supernova in the SVOM GRB 250314A with a spectroscopically measured redshift of z $\simeq$ 7.3, deep in the era of reionisation. The data are well described by a combination of faint blue host, similar to many z $\sim$ 7 galaxies, with a supernova of similar luminosity to the proto-type GRB supernova, SN 1998bw. Although larger galaxy contributions cannot be robustly excluded, given the evidence from the blue afterglow colours of low dust extinction, supernovae much brighter than SN 1998bw can be. These observations suggest that, despite disparate physical conditions, the star that created GRB 250314A was similar to GRB progenitors in the local universe.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

An extremely soft and weak fast X-ray transient associated with a luminous supernova

Long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs), including their subclasses of low-luminosity GRBs (LL-GRBs) and X-ray flashes (XRFs) characterized by low spectral peak energies, are known to be associated with broad-lined Type Ic supernovae (SNe Ic-BL), which result from the core collapse of massive stars that lose their outer hydrogen and helium envelopes. However, the soft and weak end of the GRB/XRF population remains largely unexplored, due to the limited sensitivity to soft X-ray emission. Here we report the discovery of a fast X-ray transient, EP250108a, detected by the Einstein Probe (EP) in the soft X-ray band at redshift $z = 0.176$, which was followed up by extensive multiband observations. EP250108a shares similar X-ray luminosity as XRF\,060218, the prototype of XRFs, but it extends GRBs/XRFs down to the unprecedentedly soft and weak regimes, with its $E_{\rm peak} \lesssim 1.8\,\mathrm{keV}$ and $E_{\rm iso} \lesssim 10^{49}\, \mathrm{erg}$, respectively. Meanwhile, EP250108a is found to be associated with SN\,2025kg, one of the most luminous and possibly magnetar-powered SNe Ic-BL detected so far. Modeling of the well-sampled optical light curves favors a mildly relativistic outflow as the origin of this event. This discovery demonstrates that EP, with its unique capability, is opening a new observational window into the diverse outcomes of death of massive stars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Front-end Replication Dynamic Window (FRDW) for Online Motor Imagery Classification

Motor imagery (MI) is a classical paradigm in electroencephalogram (EEG) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). Online accurate and fast decoding is very important to its successful applications. This paper proposes a simple yet effective front-end replication dynamic window (FRDW) algorithm for this purpose. Dynamic windows enable the classification based on a test EEG trial shorter than those used in training, improving the decision speed; front-end replication fills a short test EEG trial to the length used in training, improving the classification accuracy. Within-subject and cross-subject online MI classification experiments on three public datasets, with three different classifiers and three different data augmentation approaches, demonstrated that FRDW can significantly increase the information transfer rate in MI decoding. Additionally, FR can also be used in training data augmentation. FRDW helped win national champion of the China BCI Competition in 2022.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

A fast X-ray transient from a weak relativistic jet associated with a type Ic-BL supernova

Massive stars end their lives as core-collapse supernovae, amongst which some extremes are broad-lined type Ic supernovae from Wolf-Rayet stars associated with long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) having powerful relativistic jets. Their less-extreme brethren make unsuccessful jets that are choked inside the stars, appearing as X-ray flashes or low-luminosity GRBs. On the other hand, there exists a population of extragalactic fast X-ray transients (EFXTs) with timescales ranging from seconds to thousands of seconds, whose origins remain obscure. Here, we report the discovery of the bright X-ray transient EP240414a detected by the Einstein Probe (EP), which is associated with the type Ic supernova SN 2024gsa at a redshift of 0.401. The X-ray emission evolution is characterised by a very soft energy spectrum peaking at $< 1.3$ keV, which makes it different from known LGRBs, X-ray flashes, or low-luminosity GRBs. Follow-up observations at optical and radio bands revealed the existence of a weak relativistic jet that interacts with an extended shell surrounding the progenitor star. Located on the outskirts of a massive galaxy, this event reveals a new population of explosions of Wolf-Rayet stars characterised by a less powerful engine that drives a successful but weak jet, possibly owing to a progenitor star with a smaller core angular momentum than in traditional LGRB progenitors.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Soft X-ray prompt emission from a high-redshift gamma-ray burst EP240315a

Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from core collapse of massive stars. High-redshift GRBs can probe the star formation and reionization history of the early universe, but their detection remains rare. Here we report the detection of a GRB triggered in the 0.5--4 keV band by the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) on board the Einstein Probe (EP) mission, designated as EP240315a, whose bright peak was also detected by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope and Konus-Wind through off-line analyses. At a redshift of $z=4.859$, EP240315a showed a much longer and more complicated light curve in the soft X-ray band than in gamma-rays. Benefiting from a large field-of-view ($\sim$3600 deg$^2$) and a high sensitivity, EP-WXT captured the earlier engine activation and extended late engine activity through a continuous detection. With a peak X-ray flux at the faint end of previously known high-$z$ GRBs, the detection of EP240315a demonstrates the great potential for EP to study the early universe via GRBs.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Charting Galactic Accelerations: When and How to Extract a Unique Potential from the Distribution Function

The advent of datasets of stars in the Milky Way with six-dimensional phase-space information makes it possible to construct empirically the distribution function (DF). Here, we show that the accelerations can be uniquely determined from the DF using the collisionless Boltzmann equation, providing the Hessian determinant of the DF with respect to the velocities is non-vanishing. We illustrate this procedure and requirement with some analytic examples. Methods to extract the potential from datasets of discrete positions and velocities of stars are then discussed. Following Green & Ting (arXiv:2011.04673), we advocate the use of normalizing flows on a sample of observed phase-space positions to obtain a differentiable approximation of the DF. To then derive gravitational accelerations, we outline a semi-analytic method involving direct solutions of the over-constrained linear equations provided by the collisionless Boltzmann equation. Testing our algorithm on mock datasets derived from isotropic and anisotropic Hernquist models, we obtain excellent accuracies even with added noise. Our method represents a new, flexible and robust means of extracting the underlying gravitational accelerations from snapshots of six-dimensional stellar kinematics of an equilibrium system.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

On the condition for the central caustic degeneracy of the planetary microlensing

It is shown that the linear approximation of the central caustic for the planetary ($q\ll1$) microlensing is valid if $|1-s|\gg q^{1/3}$ (where $q$ is the mass ratio and $s$ is the projected separation in the unit of the Einstein ring radius of the primary). The condition is also consistent with the requirement that the binary separation is far from those in the resonant binary regime resulting in a single six-cusp caustic. Given that the linear approximation of the caustic is invariant under $s\leftrightarrow s^{-1}$, the close/wide binary degeneracy observed under the same condition may be understood via the linear approximation of the central caustic. Finally it is argued that the local degeneracies of lensing features associated with caustic crossings can still persist in the planetary events even when $|1-s|\sim q^{1/3}$ although the overall caustic shape may not be degenerate at all.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2021

Sample variance of rounded variables

If the rounding errors are assumed to be distributed independently from the intrinsic distribution of the random variable, the sample variance $s^2$ of the rounded variable is given by the sum of the true variance $\sigma^2$ and the variance of the rounding errors (which is equal to $w^2/12$ where $w$ is the size of the rounding window). Here the exact expressions for the sample variance of the rounded variables are examined and it is also discussed when the simple approximation $s^2=\sigma^2+w^2/12$ can be considered valid. In particular, if the underlying distribution $f$ belongs to a family of symmetric normalizable distributions such that $f(x)=\sigma^{-1}F(u)$ where $u=(x-\mu)/\sigma$, and $\mu$ and $\sigma^2$ are the mean and variance of the distribution, then the rounded sample variance scales like $s^2-(\sigma^2+w^2/12)\sim\sigma\Phi'(\sigma)$ as $\sigma\to\infty$ where $\Phi(\tau)=\int_{-\infty}^\infty{\rm d}u\,e^{iu\tau}F(u)$ is the characteristic function of $F(u)$. It follows that, roughly speaking, the approximation is valid for a slowly-varying symmetric underlying distribution with its variance sufficiently larger than the size of the rounding unit.

math.ST↗

arXiv2019

Self-consistent potential-density pairs of thick disks and flattened galaxies

We analyze the Miyamoto--Nagai substitution, which was introduced over forty years ago to build models of thick disks and flattened elliptical galaxies. Through it, any spherical potential can be converted to an axisymmetric potential via the replacement of spherical polar $r^2$ with $R^2 + ( a + \!\sqrt{z^2+b^2} )^2$, where ($R,z$) are cylindrical coordinates and $a$ and $b$ are constants. We show that if the spherical potential has everywhere positive density, and satisfies some straightforward constraints, then the transformed model also corresponds to positive density everywhere. This is in sharp contradistinction to substitutions like $r^2 \rightarrow R^2 + z^2/q^2$, which leads to simple potentials but can give negative densities. We use the Miyamoto--Nagai substitution to generate a number of new flattened models with analytic potential--density pairs. These include (i) a flattened model with an asymptotically flat rotation curve, which (unlike Binney's logarithmic model) is always non-negative for a wide-range of axis ratios, (ii) flattened generalizations of the hypervirial models which include Satoh's disk as a limiting case and (iii) a flattened analogue of the Navarro--Frenk--White halo which has the cosmologically interesting density fall-off of (distance)$^{-3}$. Finally, we discuss properties of the prolate and triaxial generalizations of the Miyamoto-Nagai substitution.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

Reflection symmetries of Isolated Self-consistent Stellar Systems

Isolated, steady-state galaxies correspond to equilibrium solutions of the Poisson--Vlasov system. We show that (i) all galaxies with a distribution function depending on energy alone must be spherically symmetric and (ii) all axisymmetric galaxies with a distribution function depending on energy and the angular momentum component parallel to the symmetry axis must also be reflection-symmetric about the plane $z=0$. The former result is Lichtenstein's Theorem, derived here by a method exploiting symmetries of solutions of elliptic partial differential equations, while the latter result is new. These results are subsumed into the Symmetry Theorem, which specifies how the symmetries of the distribution function in configuration or velocity space can control the planes of reflection symmetries of the ensuing stellar system.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

What can the alignments of the velocity moments tell us about the nature of the potential?

We prove that, if the time-independent distribution function $F(v;x)$ of a steady-state stellar system is symmetric under velocity inversion such that $F(-v_1,v_2,v_3;x)=F(v_1,v_2,v_3;x)$ and the same for $v_2$ and $v_3$, where $(v_1,v_2,v_3)$ is the velocity component projected onto an orthogonal frame, then the potential within which the system is in equilibrium must be separable (i.e. the Staeckel potential). Furthermore, we find that the Jeans equations imply that, if all mixed second moments of the velocity vanish, that is, $\langle v_iv_j\rangle=0$ for any $i\ne j$, in some Staeckel coordinate system and the only non-vanishing fourth moments in the same coordinate are those in the form of $\langle v_i^4\rangle$ or $\langle v_i^2v_j^2\rangle$, then the potential must be separable in the same coordinates. Finally we also show that all second and fourth velocity moments of tracers with an odd power to the radial component $v_r$ being zero is a sufficient condition to guarantee the potential to be of the form $\Phi=f(r)+r^{-2}g(\theta,\phi)$.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

On the Alignment of the Stress Tensor in Galaxies

We show that, provided the principal axes of the second velocity moment tensor of a stellar population are generally unequal and are oriented perpendicular to a set of orthogonal surfaces at each point, then those surfaces must be confocal quadric surfaces and the potential must be separable or Stackel. This is true under the mild assumption that the even part of the distribution function is invariant under time reversal $v_i \rightarrow -v_i$ of each velocity component. In particular, if the second velocity moment tensor is everywhere exactly aligned in spherical polar coordinates, then the potential must be of Stackel form (excepting degenerate cases where two or more of the semiaxes of ellipsoid are everywhere the same). The theorem also has consequences for alignment in cylindrical polar coordinates, which is used in the popular Jeans Anisotropic Models (JAM). We analyse data on the radial velocities and proper motions of a sample of $\sim 7400$ stars in the stellar halo of the Milky Way. We provide the distributions of the tilt angles or misalignments from the spherical polar coordinate systems. We show that in this sample the misalignment is always small (usually within $3^\circ$) for radii between 7 and 12 kpc. The velocity anisotropy is very radially biased ($\beta \approx 0.7$), and almost invariant across the volume in our study. Finally, we construct a triaxial stellar halo in a triaxial NFW dark matter halo using a made-to-measure method. Despite the triaxiality of the potential, the velocity ellipsoid of the stellar halo is nearly spherically aligned within $\sim6^\circ$ for large regions of space, particularly outside the scale radius of the stellar halo. We conclude that the second velocity moment ellipsoid can be close to spherically aligned for a much wider class of potentials than the strong constraints that arise from exact alignment might suggest.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

The Doubloon Models of Dark Haloes

A family of spherical halo models with flat circular velocity curves is presented. This includes models in which the rotation curve has a finite central value but declines outwards (like the Jaffe model). It includes models in which the rotation curve is rising in the inner parts, but flattens asymptotically (like the Binney model). The family encompasses models with both finite and singular (cuspy) density profiles. The self-consistent distribution function depending on binding energy $E$ and angular momentum $L$ is derived and the kinematical properties of the models discussed. These really describe the properties of the total matter (both luminous and dark). For comparison with observations, it is better to consider tracer populations of stars. These can be used to represent elliptical galaxies or the spheroidal components of spiral galaxies. Accordingly, we study the properties of tracers with power-law or Einasto profiles moving in the doubloon potential. Under the assumption of spherical alignment, we provide a simple way to solve the Jeans equations for the velocity dispersions. This choice of alignment is supported by observations on the stellar halo of the Milky Way. Power-law tracers have prolate spheroidal velocity ellipsoids everywhere. However, this is not the case for Einasto tracers, for which the velocity ellipsoids change from prolate to oblate spheroidal near the pole. Asymptotic forms of the velocity distributions close to the escape speed are also derived, with an eye to application to the high velocity stars in the Milky Way. Power-law tracers have power-law or Maxwellian velocity distributions tails, whereas Einasto tracers have super-exponential cut-offs.

astro-ph.GA↗