arXiv subjects

Minzhi Kong

Publications and source records attributed to Minzhi Kong.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

A Catalogue of Mid-infrared Variable Sources from unTimely

The WISE and NEOWISE missions have provided the only mid-infrared all-sky time-domain data, opening a unique observational window for variability studies. Yet, a comprehensive and systematic catalog of mid-infrared variable sources has remained unavailable. In this work, we construct the first large-scale mid-infrared variability catalog based on the unTimely coadded photometry, covering tens of millions of sources. By employing a Bayesian Gaussian mixture model with a Dirichlet process, we identified 8,256,042 variable sources in the W1 band and 7,147,661 in the W2 band, significantly expanding the landscape of known mid-infrared variables. In addition to robust variability metrics, our analysis highlights rare and extreme outliers through dedicated outlier-detection algorithms, enabling the discovery of unusual classes of objects such as eruptive young stellar objects, highly variable active galactic nuclei, and other rare transients. This unprecedented dataset provides a new foundation for time-domain astronomy in the mid-infrared, offering complementary insights to optical and near-infrared surveys, and opening the door to systematic investigations of stellar evolution, accretion processes, and dust-enshrouded astrophysical environments on a Galactic and extragalactic scale.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2024

Dormancy and Reawakening Over Years: Eight New Recurrent Changing-Look AGNs

We report the discovery of eight new recurrent changing-look (CL) active galactic nuclei (AGNs), including seven re-brightening turn-off AGNs and one fading turn-on AGN. These systems are valuable for placing constraints on the duration of dim and bright states, which may be linked to the AGN duty cycle or disk instability. Long-term optical light curve analysis reveals that many objects in our sample exhibit a prolonged plateau during the dim states lasting 4 to 7 years, with gradual turn-on/off process. We observe no significant difference between the turn-on and turn-off timescales, and this timescale is broadly consistent with the heating/cooling front propagation timescale. The comparison between optical and infrared variations supports that these transitions are driven by changes in accretion disk emission rather than dust obscuration. Our discovery significantly increases the previously identified recurrent CL AGN sample from eleven objects to nineteen, demonstrating that some AGNs can enter dormancy and reawaken on timescales of a few years, which provides useful information for understanding AGN episodic accretion.

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arXiv2024

Polarized radio emission of RRAT J1854+0306

Polarized radio emission of RRAT J1854+0306 is investigated with single pulses using Five-hundred-meter-Aperture Spherical Telescope. Its emission is characterized by nulls, narrow and weak pulses, and occasional wide and intense bursts with a nulling fraction of 53.2%. Its burst emission is typically of one rotation, and occasionally of two or three or even five rotations at the most, but without significant periodicity. The integrated pulse profile has an 'S'-shaped position angle curve that is superposed with orthogonal modes, from which geometry parameters are obtained. Individual pulses exhibit diverse profile morphology with single, double, or multiple peaks. The intensity and width of these pulses are highly correlated, and bright pulses generally have wide profiles with multiple peaks. These nulling behaviours, profile morphology, and polarization demonstrate that a rotating radio transient has the same physical origins as the normal pulsars.

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arXiv2024

Identifying changing-look AGNs using variability characteristics

Changing-look (CL) Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs), characterized by appearance/disappearance of broad emission lines in the span of a few years, present a challenge for the AGN unified model, whereby the Type 1 vs. Type 2 dichotomy results from orientation effects alone. We present a systematic study of a large sample of spectroscopically classified AGNs, using optical variability data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) as well as follow-up spectroscopy data. We demonstrate that Type 1 vs. 2 AGN can be neatly separated on the basis of the variability metric $σ_{\rm QSO}$, which quantifies the resemblance of a light curve to a damp random walk model. For a small sub-sample, however, the ZTF light curves are inconsistent with their previous classification, suggesting the occurrence of a CL event. Specifically, we identify 35 (12) turn-on (turn-off) CL AGN candidates at $z < 0.35$. Based on follow-up spectroscopy, we confirm 17 (4) turn-on (turn-off) CL AGNs out of 21 (5) candidates, presenting a high success rate of our method. Our results suggest that the occurrence rate of CL AGNs is $\sim$0.3% over timescales of 5 to 20 years, and confirm that the CL transition typically occurs at the Eddington ratio of $\leq 0.01$.

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arXiv2023

Periodic Variable Star Classification with Deep Learning: Handling Data Imbalance in an Ensemble Augmentation Way

Time-domain astronomy is progressing rapidly with the ongoing and upcoming large-scale photometric sky surveys led by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory project (LSST). Billions of variable sources call for better automatic classification algorithms for light curves. Among them, periodic variable stars are frequently studied. Different categories of periodic variable stars have a high degree of class imbalance and pose a challenge to algorithms including deep learning methods. We design two kinds of architectures of neural networks for the classification of periodic variable stars in the Catalina Survey's Data Release 2: a multi-input recurrent neural network (RNN) and a compound network combing the RNN and the convolutional neural network (CNN). To deal with class imbalance, we apply Gaussian Process to generate synthetic light curves with artificial uncertainties for data augmentation. For better performance, we organize the augmentation and training process in a "bagging-like" ensemble learning scheme. The experimental results show that the better approach is the compound network combing RNN and CNN, which reaches the best result of 86.2% on the overall balanced accuracy and 0.75 on the macro F1 score. We develop the ensemble augmentation method to solve the data imbalance when classifying variable stars and prove the effectiveness of combining different representations of light curves in a single model. The proposed methods would help build better classification algorithms of periodic time series data for future sky surveys (e.g., LSST).

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

Multiple HC$_3$N line observations towards 19 Galactic massive star-forming regions

We performed observations of the HC$_3$N (24-23, 17-16, 11-10, 8-7) lines towards a sample consisting of 19 Galactic massive star-forming regions with the Arizona Radio Observatory 12-m and Caltech Submillimeter Observatory 10.4-m telescopes. HC$_3$N (24-23, 17-16, 11-10, 8-7) lines were detected in sources except for W44, where only HC$_3$N (17-16, 11-10) were detected. Twelve of the nineteen sources showed probable line wing features. The excitation temperatures were estimated from the line ratio of HC$_3$N (24-23) to HC$_3$N (17-16) for 18 sources and are in the range 23-57 K. The line widths of higher-$J$ transitions are larger than lower-$J$ ones for most sources. This indicates that the inner dense warm regions have more violent turbulence or other motions (such as rotation) than outer regions in these sources. A possible cutoff tendency was found around $L_{\rm IR}$ $\sim$ 10$^{6}$ $L_\odot$ in the relation between $L_{\rm IR}$ and full width at half maximum line widths.

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arXiv2020

High-redshift Extreme Variability Quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Multi-Epoch Spectroscopy

We perform a systematic search for high-redshift ($z >$ 1.5) extreme variability quasars (EVQs) using repeat spectra from the Sixteenth Data Release of Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which provides a baseline spanning up to $\sim$18 yrs in the observed frame. We compile a sample of 348 EVQs with a maximum continuum variability at rest frame 1450 Angstrom of more than 100% (i.e., $δ$V $\equiv$ (Max$-$Min)/Mean $>$1). The EVQs show a range of emission line variability, including 23 where at least one line in our redshift range disappears below detectability, which can then be seen as analogous to low-redshift changing-look quasars (CLQs)". Importantly, spurious CLQs caused by SDSS problematic spectral flux calibration, e.g., fiber drop issue, have been rejected. The similar properties (e.g., continuum/line, difference-composite spectra and Eddington ratio) of normal EVQs and CLQs, implies that they are basically the same physical population with analogous intrinsic variability mechanisms, as a tail of a continuous distribution of normal quasar properties. In addition, we find no reliable evidence ($\lesssim$ 1$σ$) to support that the CLQs are a subset of EVQs with less efficient accretion. Finally, we also confirm the anti-breathing of C IV (i.e., line width increases as luminosity increases) in EVQs, and find that in addition to $\sim$ 0.4 dex systematic uncertainty in single-epoch C IV virial black hole mass estimates, an extra scatter of $\sim$ 0.3 dex will be introduced by extreme variability.

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arXiv2019

A Trio of Massive Black Holes Caught in the Act of Merging

We report the discovery of SDSS J0849+1114 as the first known triple Type 2 Seyfert nucleus. It represents three active black holes that are identified from new spatially resolved optical slit spectroscopy using the Dual Imaging Spectrograph on the 3.5 m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory. We also present new complementary observations including the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 U- and Y-band imaging, Chandra Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer S-array X-ray 0.5--8 keV imaging spectroscopy, and NSF Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio 9.0 GHz imaging in its most extended A configuration. These comprehensive multiwavelength observations, when combined together, strongly suggest that all three nuclei are active galactic nuclei. While they are now still at kiloparsec-scale separations, where the host-galaxy gravitational potential dominates, the black holes may evolve into a bound triple system in $\lesssim$2 Gyr. These triple merger systems may explain the overly massive stellar cores that have been observed in some elliptical galaxies such as M87, which are expected to be unique gravitational wave sources. Similar systems may be more common in the early universe, when galaxy mergers are thought to have been more frequent.

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arXiv2019

Understanding Broad Mg II Variability in Quasars with Photoionization: Implications for Reverberation Mapping and Changing-Look Quasars

The broad Mg II line in quasars has distinct variability properties compared with broad Balmer lines: it is less variable, and usually does not display a "breathing" mode, the increase in the average cloud distance when luminosity increases. We demonstrate that these variability properties of Mg II can be reasonably well explained by simple Locally Optimally Emitting Cloud (LOC) photoionization models, confirming earlier photoionization results. In the fiducial LOC model, the Mg II-emitting gas is on average more distant from the ionizing source than the H$α$/H$β$ gas, and responds with a lower amplitude to continuum variations. If the broad-line region (BLR) is truncated at a physical radius of $\sim 0.3$ pc (for a $10^{8.5}M_{\odot}$ BH accreting at Eddington ratio of 0.1), most of the Mg II flux will always be emitted near this outer boundary and hence will not display breathing. These results indicate that reverberation mapping results on broad Mg II, while generally more difficult to obtain due to the lower line responsivity, can still be used to infer the Mg II BLR size and hence black hole mass. But it is possible that Mg II does not have a well defined intrinsic BLR size-luminosity relation for individual quasars, even though a global one for the general population may still exist. The dramatic changes in broad H$α$/H$β$ emission in the observationally-rare changing-look quasars are fully consistent with photoionization responses to extreme continuum variability, and the LOC model provides natural explanations for the persistence of broad Mg II in changing-look quasars defined on H$α$/H$β$, and the rare population of broad Mg II emitters in the spectra of massive inactive galaxies.

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arXiv2019

Discovery of A Mg II Changing-look AGN and its Implications for a Unification Sequence of Changing-look AGNs

Changing-Look (CL) is a rare phenomenon of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) that exhibit emerging or disappearing broad lines accompanied by continuum variations on astrophysically short timescales ($\lesssim$ 1 yr to a few decades). While previous studies have found Balmer-line (broad H$α$ and/or H$β$) CL AGNs, the broad Mg II line is persistent even in dim states. No unambiguous Mg II CL AGN has been reported to date. We perform a systematic search of Mg II CL AGNs using multi-epoch spectra of a special population of Mg II-emitters (characterized by strong broad Mg II emission with little evidence for AGN from other normal indicators such as broad H$α$ and H$β$ or blue power-law continua) from the Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We present the discovery of the first unambiguous case of an Mg II CL AGN, SDSS J152533.60+292012.1 (at redshift $z$ = 0.449), which is turning off within rest-frame 286 days. The dramatic diminishing of Mg II equivalent width (from 110 $\pm$ 26 Angstrom to being consistent with zero), together with little optical continuum variation ($ΔV_{\rm max-min}$ $=$ 0.17 $\pm$ 0.05 mag) coevally over $\sim$ 10 years, rules out dust extinction or a tidal disruption event. Combined with previously known H$β$ CL AGNs, we construct a sequence that represents different temporal stages of CL AGNs. This CL sequence is best explained by the photoionization model of Guo et al. (2019). In addition, we present two candidate turn-on Mg II CL AGNs and a sample of 361 Mg II-emitters for future Mg II CL AGN searches.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Millimeter line observations toward four local galaxies

We present results of millimeter line observations toward four local gas-rich galaxies (NGC 3079, NGC 4258, NGC 6240 and VII Zw 31) with the IRAM 30 meter millimeter telescope. More than 33 lines in these four sources were detected, including normal dense gas tracers (HCN 1-0, HCO$^+$ 1-0, and C$_2$H 1-0, etc) and their isotopic species. H$^{13}$CN (1-0) and H$^{13}$CO$^+$ (1-0) are detected for the first time in NGC 4258. Optical depths of HCN 1-0 and HCO$^{+}$ 1-0 were estimated with detected isotopic lines in NGC 4258, which were 4.1 and 2.6, respectively. HC$_3$N $J=29-28$, which requires high volume density and high temperature to excite, was detected in NGC 6240. High ratios of HCO$^+$/HCN in NGC 4258 and NGC 6240 imply that this ratio might not be a perfect diagnostic tool between AGN and starburst environments, due to contamination/combination of both processes. The low HC$_3$N/HCN line ratios with less than 0.15 in NGC 4258, NGC 6240 and the non-detection of HC$_3$N line in NGC 3079 and VII Zw 31 indicates that these four galaxies are HC$_3$N-poor galaxies. The variation of fractional abundance of CN in different types of galaxies is large.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

The Black Hole Masses and Eddington Ratios of Type 2 Quasars

Type 2 quasars are an important constituent of active galaxies, possibly representing the evolutionary precursors of traditionally studied type 1 quasars. We characterize the black hole mass ($M_{\rm BH}$) and Eddington ratio ($L_{\rm bol}/L_{\rm Edd}$) for 669 type 2 quasars selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, using black hole masses estimated from the $M_{\rm BH}-σ_{\ast}$ relation and bolometric corrections scaled from the extinction-corrected $ [\rm O~{\scriptsize III}]~ λ5007$ luminosity. When stellar velocity dispersions cannot be measured directly from the spectra, we estimate them from the core velocity dispersions of the narrow emission lines $ \rm [O~{\scriptsize II}]~ λλ3726, 3729$, $ \rm [S~{\scriptsize II}]~λλ6716, 6731$, and $[ \rm O~{\scriptsize III}]~ λ5007$, which are shown to trace the gravitational potential of the stars. Energy input from the active nucleus still imparts significant perturbations to the gas kinematics, especially to high-velocity, blueshifted wings. Nonvirial motions in the gas become most noticeable in systems with high Eddington ratios. The black hole masses of our sample of type 2 quasars range from $M_{\rm BH} \approx 10^{6.5} $ to $10^{10.4} \, M_\odot$ (median $10^{8.2} \, M_\odot$). Type 2 quasars have characteristically large Eddington ratios ($L_{\rm bol}/L_{\rm Edd}~\approx 10^{-2.9}-10^{1.8}$; median $10^{-0.7}$), slightly higher than in type~1 quasars of similar redshift; the luminosities of $\sim$20% of the sample formally exceed the Eddington limit. The high Eddington ratios may be consistent with the notion that obscured quasars evolve into unobscured quasars.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Probing satellite galaxies in the Local Group by using FAST

The abundance of neutral hydrogen (HI) in satellite galaxies in the Local Group is important for studying the formation history of our Local Group. In this work, we generated mock HI satellite galaxies in the Local Group using the high mass resolution hydrodynamic \textsc{apostle} simulation. The simulated HI mass function agrees with the ALFALFA survey very well above $10^6M_{\odot}$, although there is a discrepancy below this scale because of the observed flux limit. After carefully checking various systematic elements in the observations, including fitting of line width, sky coverage, integration time, and frequency drift due to uncertainty in a galaxy's distance, we predicted the abundance of HI in galaxies in a future survey that will be conducted by FAST. FAST has a larger aperture and higher sensitivity than the Arecibo telescope. We found that the HI mass function could be estimated well around $10^5 M_{\odot}$ if the integration time is 40 minutes. Our results indicate that there are 61 HI satellites in the Local Group, and 36 in the FAST field above $10^5 M_{\odot}$. This estimation is one order of magnitude better than the current data, and will put a strong constraint on the formation history of the Local Group. Also more high resolution simulated samples are needed to achieve this target.

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