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Q. Luo

Publications and source records attributed to Q. Luo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Magnetic Fields in Massive Star-forming Regions (MagMaR). VII. On the dynamical importance of B-fields in massive protocluster W33 A

Magnetic fields (B-fields) are likely important in massive protocluster formation, but their role remains poorly constrained. We present 1.2 mm ALMA full-polarization observations of W33 A, a massive star-forming region at 2.4 kpc, with an angular resolution of 0.3 arcsec (730 au). The region is resolved into 20 dense cores and 9 filaments. The plane-of-sky B-field, inferred from linearly polarized dust emission, shows diverse structures: two nearly perpendicular large-scale components oriented northwest-southeast (NW-SE) and northeast-southwest (NE-SW), and two localized features toward the millimeter peaks MM1 and MM2. The NW-SE component could be shaped by a molecular outflow. The NE-SW component is coherent along the main filaments F1, F-Main, and Tail, all of which show trans-Alfvenic turbulence. In F-Main, the line mass exceeds the turbulent critical value, implying that magnetic support is required to prevent radial collapse and suppress fragmentation. In F1 and Tail, turbulence alone can support the gas against gravity, although B-fields may provide additional support. Toward MM1, the B-field follows a spiral-like infalling streamer traced by CH3CN. The trans-Alfvenic state of the accreting gas suggests efficient magnetic damping of turbulence and a magnetically regulated, laminar accretion flow feeding the core. Toward MM2, the B-field shows an hourglass morphology fitted by parabolic curves. Two independent methods give a consistent field strength of about 8.1(1.9) mG, and virial analysis indicates that the B-field is dynamically important in delaying collapse of MM2. Within a single protocluster, B-fields can stabilize filaments, regulate accretion, and delay core collapse, highlighting their diverse dynamic role in high-mass star formation.

astro-ph.GA

Deep Learning for Gradient and BCG Artifacts Removal in EEG During Simultaneous fMRI

Simultaneous EEG-fMRI recording combines high temporal and spatial resolution for tracking neural activity. However, its usefulness is greatly limited by artifacts from magnetic resonance (MR), especially gradient artifacts (GA) and ballistocardiogram (BCG) artifacts, which interfere with the EEG signal. To address this issue, we used a denoising autoencoder (DAR), a deep learning framework designed to reduce MR-related artifacts in EEG recordings. Using paired data that includes both artifact-contaminated and MR-corrected EEG from the CWL EEG-fMRI dataset, DAR uses a 1D convolutional autoencoder to learn a direct mapping from noisy to clear signal segments. Compared to traditional artifact removal methods like principal component analysis (PCA), independent component analysis (ICA), average artifact subtraction (AAS), and wavelet thresholding, DAR shows better performance. It achieves a root-mean-squared error (RMSE) of 0.0218 $\pm$ 0.0152, a structural similarity index (SSIM) of 0.8885 $\pm$ 0.0913, and a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) gain of 14.63 dB. Statistical analysis with paired t-tests confirms that these improvements are significant (p<0.001; Cohen's d>1.2). A leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) cross-validation protocol shows that the model generalizes well, yielding an average RMSE of 0.0635 $\pm$ 0.0110 and an SSIM of 0.6658 $\pm$ 0.0880 across unseen subjects. Additionally, saliency-based visualizations demonstrate that DAR highlights areas with dense artifacts, which makes its decisions easier to interpret. Overall, these results position DAR as a potential and understandable solution for real-time EEG artifact removal in simultaneous EEG-fMRI applications.

eess.SP

New insight into the Rapid Burster by Insight-HXMT

We report the timing and spectral analyses upon of the type II X-ray bursts from the Rapid Burster (MXB 1730--335) observed by Insight-HXMT and Swift/XRT. By stacking the long-duration bursts, we find for the first time that the hard X-rays are lagging than the soft X-rays by 3 seconds. However, such a lag is not visible for the short-duration bursts, probably because of the poor statistics. For all bursts the energy spectrum is found to be non-thermal, thanks to the broad band coverage of Insight-HXMT. These findings put new insights into the type-II bursts and require a temporally showing-up corona for possible interpretation.

astro-ph.HE

Peculiar disk behaviors of the black hole candidate MAXI J1348-630 in the hard state observed by Insight-HXMT and Swift

We present a spectral study of the black hole candidate MAXI J1348-630 during its 2019 outburst, based on monitoring observations with Insight-HXMT and Swift. Throughout the outburst, the spectra are well fitted with power-law plus disk-blackbody components. In the soft-intermediate and soft states, we observed the canonical relation L ~ T_in^4 between disk luminosity L and peak colour temperature T_in, with a constant inner radius R_in (traditionally identified with the innermost stable circular orbit). At other stages of the outburst cycle, the behaviour is more unusual, inconsistent with the canonical outburst evolution of black hole transients. In particular, during the hard rise, the apparent inner radius is smaller than in the soft state (and increasing), and the peak colour temperature is higher (and decreasing). This anomalous behaviour is found even when we model the spectra with self-consistent Comptonization models, which take into account the up-scattering of photons from the disk component into the power-law component. To explain both those anomalous trends at the same time, we suggest that the hardening factor for the inner disk emission was larger than the canonical value of ~1.7 at the beginning of the outburst. A more physical trend of radii and temperature evolution requires a hardening factor evolving from ~3.5 at the beginning of the hard state to ~1.7 in the hard intermediate state. This could be evidence that the inner disk was in the process of condensing from the hot, optically thin medium and had not yet reached a sufficiently high optical depth for its emission spectrum to be described by the standard optically-thick disk solution.

astro-ph.HE

GECAM detection of a bright type-I X-ray burst from 4U 0614+09: confirmation its spin frequency at 413 Hz

One month after launching Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM), a bright thermonuclear X-ray burst from 4U~0614+09, was observed on January 24, 2021. We report the time-resolved spectroscopy of the burst and a burst oscillation detection at 413 Hz with a fractional amplitude 3.4\% (rms). This coincides with the burst oscillation previously discovered with \textit{Swift}/BAT \citep{Strohmayer2008}, and therefore confirms the spin frequency of this source. This burst is the brightest one in the normal bursts (except the superburst) ever detected from 4U~0614+09, which leads to an upper limit of distance estimation as 3.1 kpc. The folded light curve during the burst oscillation shows a multi-peak structure, which is the first case observed during a single burst oscillation in nonpulsating sources. The multi-peak profile could be due to additional harmonics of the burst oscillation, which is corresponding to several brighter/fainter spots at the stellar surface.

astro-ph.HE

Search for Gamma-Ray Bursts and Gravitational Wave Electromagnetic Counterparts with High Energy X-ray Telescope of \textit{Insight}-HXMT

The High Energy X-ray telescope (HE) on-board the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (\textit{Insight}-HXMT) can serve as a wide Field of View (FOV) gamma-ray monitor with high time resolution ($\mu$s) and large effective area (up to thousands cm$^2$). We developed a pipeline to search for Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), using the traditional signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) method for blind search and the coherent search method for targeted search. By taking into account the location and spectrum of the burst and the detector response, the targeted coherent search is more powerful to unveil weak and sub-threshold bursts, especially those in temporal coincidence with Gravitational Wave (GW) events. Based on the original method in literature, we further improved the coherent search to filter out false triggers caused by spikes in light curves, which are commonly seen in gamma-ray instruments (e.g. \textit{Fermi}/GBM, \textit{POLAR}). We show that our improved targeted coherent search method could eliminate almost all false triggers caused by spikes. Based on the first two years of \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE data, our targeted search recovered 40 GRBs, which were detected by either \textit{Swift}/BAT or \textit{Fermi}/GBM but too weak to be found in our blind search. With this coherent search pipeline, the GRB detection sensitivity of \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE is increased to about 1.5E-08 erg/cm$^2$ (200 keV$-$3 MeV). We also used this targeted coherent method to search \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE data for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of LIGO-Virgo GW events (including O2 and O3a runs). However, we did not find any significant burst associated with GW events.

astro-ph.HE

Accretion Torque Reversals in GRO J1008-57 Revealed by Insight-HXMT

GRO J1008-57, as a Be/X-ray transient pulsar, is considered to have the highest magnetic field in known neutron star X-ray binary systems. Observational data of the X-ray outbursts in GRO J1008-57 from 2017 to 2020 were collected by the Insight-HXMT satellite. In this work, the spin period of the neutron star in GRO J1008-57 was determined to be about 93.28 seconds in August 2017, 93.22 seconds in February 2018, 93.25 seconds in June 2019 and 93.14 seconds in June 2020. GRO J1008-57 evolved in the spin-up process with a mean rate of $-(2.10\pm 0.05)\times$10$^{-4}$ s/d from 2009 -- 2018, and turned into a spin down process with a rate of $(6.7\pm 0.6)\times$10$^{-5}$ s/d from Feb 2018 to June 2019. During the type II outburst of 2020, GRO J1008-57 had the spin-up torque again. During the torque reversals, the pulse profiles and continuum X-ray spectra did not change significantly, and the cyclotron resonant scattering feature around 80 keV was only detected during the outbursts in 2017 and 2020. Based on the observed mean spin-up rate, we estimated the inner accretion disk radius in GRO J1008-57 (about 1 - 2 times of the Alfv\'{e}n radius) by comparing different accretion torque models of magnetic neutron stars. During the spin-down process, the magnetic torque should dominate over the matter accreting inflow torque, and we constrained the surface dipole magnetic field $B\geq 6\times 10^{12}$ G for the neutron star in GRO J1008-57, which is consistent with the magnetic field strength obtained by cyclotron line centroid energy.

astro-ph.HE

Insight-HXMT observations of Swift J0243.6+6124: the evolution of RMS pulse fractions at super-Eddington luminosity

Based on Insight-HXMT data, we report on the pulse fraction evolution during the 2017-2018 outburst of the newly discovered first Galactic ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) Swift J0243.6+6124. The pulse fractions of 19 observation pairs selected in the rising and fading phases with similar luminosity are investigated. The results show a general trend of the pulse fraction increasing with luminosity and energy at super-critical luminosity. However, the relative strength of the pulsation between each pair evolves strongly with luminosity. The pulse fraction in the rising phase is larger at luminosity below $7.71\times10^{38}$~erg~s$^{-1}$, but smaller at above. A transition luminosity is found to be energy independent. Such a phenomena is firstly confirmed by Insight-HXMT observations and we speculate it may have relation with the radiation pressure dominated accretion disk.

astro-ph.HE

Physical origin of the nonphysical spin evolution of MAXI J1820+070

We report on the Insight-HXMT observations of the new black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during its 2018 outburst. Detailed spectral analysis via the continuum fitting method shows an evolution of the inferred spin during its high soft sate. Moreover, the hardness ratio, the non-thermal luminosity and the reflection fraction also undergo an evolution, exactly coincident to the period when the inferred spin transition takes place. The unphysical evolution of the spin is attributed to the evolution of the inner disc, which is caused by the collapse of a hot corona due to condensation mechanism or may be related to the deceleration of a jet-like corona. The studies of the inner disc radius and the relation between the disc luminosity and the inner disc radius suggest that, only at a particular epoch, did the inner edge of the disc reach the innermost stable circular orbit and the spin measurement is reliable. We then constrain the spin of MAXI J1820+070 to be a*=0.2^{+0.2}_{-0.3}. Such a slowly spinning black hole possessing a strong jet suggests that its jet activity is driven mainly by the accretion disc rather than by the black hole spin.

astro-ph.HE

X-ray reprocessing in accreting pulsar GX 301-2 observed with Insight-HXMT

We investigate the absorption and emission features in observations of GX 301-2 detected with Insight-HXMT/LE in 2017-2019. At different orbital phases, we found prominent Fe Kalpha, Kbeta and Ni Kalpha lines, as well as Compton shoulders and Fe K-shell absorption edges. These features are due to the X-ray reprocessing caused by the interaction between the radiation from the source and surrounding accretion material. According to the ratio of iron lines Kalpha and Kbeta, we infer the accretion material is in a low ionisation state. We find an orbital-dependent local absorption column density, which has a large value and strong variability around the periastron. We explain its variability as a result of inhomogeneities of the accretion environment and/or instabilities of accretion processes. In addition, the variable local column density is correlated with the equivalent width of the iron Kalpha lines throughout the orbit, which suggests that the accretion material near the neutron star is spherically distributed.

astro-ph.HE

Insight-HXMT observations of a possible fast transition from jet to wind dominated state during a huge flare of GRS~1915+105

We present the analysis of the brightest flare that was recorded in the \emph{Insight}-HMXT data set, in a broad energy range (2$-$200 keV) from the microquasar GRS~1915+105 during an unusual low-luminosity state. This flare was detected by \emph{Insight}-HXMT among a series of flares during 2 June 2019 UTC 16:37:06 to 20:11:36, with a 2-200 keV luminosity of 3.4$-$7.27$\times10^{38}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Basing on the broad-band spectral analysis, we find that the flare spectrum shows different behaviors during bright and faint epochs. The spectrum of the flare can be fitted with a model dominated by a power-law component. Additional components show up in the bright epoch with a hard tail and in the faint epoch with an absorption line $\sim$ 6.78 keV. The reflection component of the latter is consistent with an inner disk radius $\sim$ 5 times larger than that of the former. These results on the giant flare during the "unusual" low-luminosity state of GRS~1915+105 may suggest that the source experiences a possible fast transition from a jet-dominated state to a wind-dominated state. We speculate that the evolving accretion disk and the large-scale magnetic field may play important roles in this peculiar huge flare.

astro-ph.HE

A variable ionized disk wind in the black-hole candidate EXO 1846-031

After 34 years, the black-hole candidate EXO 1846-031 went into outburst again in 2019. We investigate its spectral properties in the hard intermediate and the soft states with NuSTAR and Insight-HXMT. A reflection component has been detected in the two spectral states but possibly originating from different illumination spectra: in the intermediate state, the illuminating source is attributed to a hard coronal component, which has been commonly observed in other X-ray binaries, whereas in the soft state the reflection is probably produced by the disk self-irradiation. Both cases support EXO 1846-031 as a low inclination system of ~40 degrees. An absorption line is clearly detected at ~7.2 keV in the hard intermediate state, corresponding to a highly ionized disk wind (log {\xi} > 6.1) with a velocity up to 0.06c. Meanwhile, quasi-simultaneous radio emissions have been detected before and after the X-rays, implying the co-existence of disk winds and jets in this system. Additionally, the observed wind in this source is potentially driven by magnetic forces. The absorption line disappeared in the soft state and a narrow emission line appeared at ~6.7 keV on top of the reflection component, which may be evidence for disk winds, but data with the higher spectral resolution are required to examine this.

astro-ph.HE

Constraining the transient high-energy activity of FRB180916.J0158+65 with Insight-HXMT followup observations

A link between magnetars and fast radio burst (FRB) sources has finally been established. In this context, one of the open issues is whether/which sources of extra galactic FRBs exhibit X/gamma-ray outbursts and whether it is correlated with radio activity. We aim to constrain possible X/gamma-ray burst activity from one of the nearest extragalactic FRB sources currently known over a broad energy range, by looking for bursts over a range of timescales and energies that are compatible with being powerful flares from extragalactic magnetars. We followed up the as-yet nearest extragalactic FRB source at a mere 149 Mpc distance, the periodic repeater FRB180916.J0158+65, during the active phase on February 4-7, 2020, with the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). Taking advantage of the combination of broad band, large effective area, and several independent detectors available, we searched for bursts over a set of timescales from 1 ms to 1.024 s with a sensitive algorithm, that had previously been characterised and optimised. Moreover, through simulations we studied the sensitivity of our technique in the released energy-duration phase space for a set of synthetic flares and assuming different energy spectra. We constrain the possible occurrence of flares in the 1-100 keV energy band to E<10^46 erg for durations <0.1 s over several tens of ks exposure. We can rule out the occurrence of giant flares similar to the ones that were observed in the few cases of Galactic magnetars. The absence of reported radio activity during our observations does not allow us to make any statements on the possible simultaneous high-energy emission.

astro-ph.HE

Insight-HXMT firm detection of the highest energy fundamental cyclotron resonance scattering feature in the spectrum of GRO J1008-57

We report on the observation of the accreting pulsar GRO J1008-57 performed by Insight-HXMT at the peak of the source's 2017 outburst. Pulsations are detected with a spin period of 93.283(1) s. The pulse profile shows double peaks at soft X-rays, and only one peak above 20 keV. The spectrum is well described by the phenomenological models of X-ray pulsars. A cyclotron resonant scattering feature is detected with very high statistical significance at a centroid energy of $E_{\rm cyc}=90.32_{-0.28}^{+0.32}$ keV, for the reference continuum and line models, HIGHECUT and GABS respectively. Detection is very robust with respect to different continuum models. The line energy is significantly higher than what suggested from previous observations, which provided very marginal evidence for the line. This establishes a new record for the centroid energy of a fundamental cyclotron resonant scattering feature observed in accreting pulsars. We also discuss the accretion regime of the source during the Insight-HXMT observation.

astro-ph.HE

HXMT Identification of a non-thermal X-ray burst from SGR J1935+2154 and with FRB 200428

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short pulses observed in radio band from cosmological distances. One class of models invoke soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), or magnetars, as the sources of FRBs. Some radio pulses have been observed from some magnetars, however, no FRB-like events had been detected in association any magnetar burst, including one giant flare. Recently, a pair of FRB-like bursts (FRB 200428 hereafter) separated by milliseconds (ms) were detected from the general direction of the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154. Here we report the detection of a non-thermal X-ray burst in the 1-250 keV energy band with the Insight-HXMT satellite, which we identify as emitted from SGR J1935+2154. The burst showed two hard peaks with a separation of 34 ms, broadly consistent with that of the two bursts in FRB 200428. The delay time between the double radio and X-ray peaks is about 8.57 s, fully consistent with the dispersion delay of FRB 200428. We thus identify the non-thermal X-ray burst is associated with FRB 200428 whose high energy counterpart is the two hard peaks in X-ray. Our results suggest that the non-thermal X-ray burst and FRB 200428 share the same physical origin in an explosive event from SGR J1935+2154.

astro-ph.HE

Insight-HXMT insight into switch of the accretion mode: the case of the X-ray pulsar 4U 1901+03

We use the In data collected during the 2019 outburst from X-ray pulsar 4U 1901+03 to complement the orbital parameters reported by Fermi/GBM. Using the Insight-HXMT, we examine the correlation between the derivative of the intrinsic spin frequency and bolometric flux based on accretion torque models. It was found that the pulse profiles significantly evolve during the outburst. The existence of two types of the profile's pattern discovered in the Insight-HXMT data indicates that this source experienced transition between a super-critical and a sub-critical accretion regime during its 2019 outburst. Based on the evolution of the pulse profiles and the torque model, we derive the distance to 4U 1901+03 as 12.4+-0.2 kpc.

astro-ph.HE

The evolution of the broadband temporal features observed in the black-hole transient MAXI J1820+070 with Insight-HXMT

We study the evolution of the temporal properties of MAXI 1820+070 during the 2018 outburst in its hard state from MJD 58190 to 58289 with Insight-HXMT in a broad energy band 1-150 keV. We find different behaviors of the hardness ratio, the fractional rms and time lag before and after MJD 58257, suggesting a transition occurred at around this point. The observed time lags between the soft photons in the 1-5 keV band and the hard photons in higher energy bands, up to 150 keV, are frequency-dependent: the time lags in the low-frequency range, 2-10 mHz, are both soft and hard lags with a timescale of dozens of seconds but without a clear trend along the outburst; the time lags in the high-frequency range, 1-10 Hz, are only hard lags with a timescale of tens of milliseconds; first increase until around MJD 58257 and decrease after this date. The high-frequency time lags are significantly correlated to the photon index derived from the fit to the quasi-simultaneous NICER spectrum in the 1-10 keV band. This result is qualitatively consistent with a model in which the high-frequency time lags are produced by Comptonization in a jet.

astro-ph.HE

Discovery of delayed spin-up behavior following two large glitches in the Crab pulsar, and the statistics of such processes

Glitches correspond to sudden jumps of rotation frequency ($\nu$) and its derivative ($\dot{\nu}$) of pulsars, the origin of which remains not well understood yet, partly because the jump processes of most glitches are not well time-resolved. There are three large glitches of the Crab pulsar, detected in 1989, 1996 and 2017, which were found to have delayed spin-up processes before the normal recovery processes. Here we report two additional glitches of the Crab pulsar occurred in 2004 and 2011 for which we discovered delayed spin up processes, and present refined parameters of the largest glitch occurred in 2017. The initial rising time of the glitch is determined as $<0.48$ hour. We also carried out a statistical study of these five glitches with observed spin-up processes. The two glitches occurred in 2004 and 2011 have delayed spin-up time scales ($\tau_{1}$) of $1.7\pm0.8$\,days and $1.6\pm0.4$\,days, respectively. We find that the $\Delta{\nu}$ vs. $|\Delta{\dot\nu}|$ relation of these five glitches is similar to those with no detected delayed spin-up process, indicating that they are similar to the others in nature except that they have larger amplitudes. For these five glitches, the amplitudes of the delayed spin-up process ($|\Delta{\nu}_{\rm d1}|$) and recovery process ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm d2}$), their time scales ($\tau_{1}$, $\tau_{2}$), and permanent changes in spin frequency ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm p}$) and total frequency step ($\Delta{\nu}_{\rm g}$) have positive correlations. From these correlations, we suggest that the delayed spin-up processes are common for all glitches, but are too short and thus difficult to be detected for most glitches.

astro-ph.HE