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Qingwen Wu

Publications and source records attributed to Qingwen Wu.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Accretion in Strong Field Gravity with eXTP

In this paper we describe the potential of the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission for studies related to accretion flows in the strong field gravity regime around both stellar-mass and supermassive black-holes. eXTP has the unique capability of using advanced 'spectral-timing-polarimetry' techniques to analyze the rapid variations with three orthogonal diagnostics of the flow and its geometry, yielding unprecedented insight into the inner accreting regions, the effects of strong field gravity on the material within them and the powerful outflows which are driven by the accretion process.

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The Radio/Gamma Connection of Blazars from High to Low Radio Frequencies

We construct a large sample of gamma-ray blazars with low-frequency radio data using the recent released TGSS AD1 catalog at 150 MHz. The radio/gamma connections of blazars are compared from 143 GHz to 150 MHz. The radio flux density at all radio frequencies shows strong correlation with gamma-ray flux for blazars, as well as for the two subclasses, FSRQs and BL Lacs. But the correlations get worse from high to low radio frequencies, which indicates that the low-frequency radio emission is the mixture of extended and core components for blazars. In addition, we find that the correlation between 150 MHz radio flux density and gamma-ray flux is more significant for BL Lacs than that for FSRQs. The slope for the luminosity correlation between radio and gamma-ray also get flatter than unity at 150 MHz. These results indicate that the core dominance at 150 MHz for BL Lacs is larger than that for FSRQs. We also compare the radio luminosity from direct TGSS observation and the extended radiation at 150 MHz for blazars. The results show that the ratio between core and extended component at 150 MHz is about 1:1 on average.

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Constraints on the composition, magnetization, and radiative efficiency in jet of blazar

The composition and energy dissipation in jets are two of the fundamental questions of jet physics that are not fully understood. In this paper, we attempt to constrain the composition, magnetization as well as radiative efficiency for blazar with the recently released low-frequency radio catalog of the TIFR GMRT Sky Survey at 150 MHz. The jet power estimated from the low-frequency radio emission is much lower than that derived from spectral energy distribution fitting assuming one proton per electron. Assuming the jet power estimated from low-frequency radio emission is physical, the fraction of electron/positron pairs can be constrained with $n_{\rm pairs}/n_{\rm p} \sim 10$. By comparing the power carried by magnetic field and radiation with the jet power estimated from the low-frequency radio emission, we find both relatively high magnetization parameter of $σ\sim 0.5$ and radiative efficiency of $η\sim 0.4$ in the dissipation region of blazars. These results suggest that the magnetic reconnection processes may play an important role in the energy dissipation of blazars. We also explore the connection between these three parameters ($n_{\rm pairs}/n_{\rm p}$, $σ$, and $η$) and the black hole mass, disk luminosity as well as Eddington ratio. No significant correlation is found, except that $σ$ shows possible correlation with disk luminosity.

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A Method for Locating High Energy Dissipation Region in Blazar

The production site of gamma-rays in blazar jet is an unresolved problem. We present a method to locate gamma-ray emission region in the framework of one-zone emission model. From measurements of core-shift effect, the relation between the magnetic field strengths ($B'$) in the radio cores of jet and the distances ($R$) of these radio cores from central supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be inferred. Therefore once the magnetic field strength in gamma-ray emission region ($B'_{\rm diss}$) is obtained, one can use the relation of $B'$-$R$ to derive the distance ($R_{\rm diss}$) of gamma-ray emission region from SMBH. Here we evaluate the lower limit of $B'_{\rm diss}$ by using the criteria that the optical variability timescale $t_{\rm var}$ should be longer or equal to the synchrotron radiation cooling timescale of the electrons that emit optical photons. We test the method with the observations of PSK 1510-089 and BL Lacertae, and derive $R_{\rm diss}<0.15δ_{\rm D}^{1/3}(1+A)^{2/3}\ $pc for PSK 1510-089 with $t_{\rm var}\sim$ a few hours, and $R_{\rm diss}<0.003δ_{\rm D}^{1/3}(1+A)^{2/3}\ $pc for BL Lacertae with $t_{\rm var}\sim$ a few minutes. Here $δ_{\rm D} $ is the Doppler factor and $A$ is the Compton dominance (i.e., the ratio of the Compton to the synchrotron peak luminosities).

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On the intrinsic shape of gamma-ray spectrum for Fermi blazars

The curvature of the $γ$-ray spectrum in blazars may reflect the intrinsic distribution of the emitting electron distribution, which will further give some information on the possible acceleration and cooling processes in the emitting region. The $γ$-ray spectra of Fermi blazars are normally fitted either by a single power-law (PL) or a log-normal (call Logarithmic Parabola, LP) form. The possible reason for this differnece is not unclear. We statistically explore this issue based on the different observational properties of 1419 Fermi blazars in the 3LAC Clean sample. We find that the $γ$-ray flux (100 MeV-100 GeV) and variability index follow bimodal distributions for PL and LP blazars, where $γ$-ray flux and variability index show {a positive correlation}. However, the distributions of the $γ$-ray luminosity and redshift follow a unimodal distribution. Our results suggest that the bimodal distribution of $γ$-ray flux for LP and PL blazars may be not intrinsic and all blazars may have an intrinsic curved $γ$-ray spectrum and the PL spectrum is just caused by the fitting effect due to the less photons.

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Optical and Gamma-Ray Variability Behaviors of 3C 454.3 from 2006 to 2011

We present our photometric monitoring of a flat spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) 3C 454.3 at Yunnan observatories from 2006 to 2011. We find that the optical color of 3C 454.3 shows obvious redder-when-brighter trend, which reaches a saturation stage when the source is brighter than 15.15 mag at V band. We perform a simulation with multiple values of disk luminosity and spectral index to reproduce the magnitude-color diagram. The results show that the contamination caused by the disk radiation alone is difficult to produce the observed color variability. The variability properties during the outburst in December 2009 are also compared with $γ$-ray data derived from Fermi $γ$-ray space telescope. The flux variation of these two bands follow a linear relation with $F_γ \propto F_R^{1.14\pm0.07}$, which provides an observational evidence for external Compton process in 3C 454.3. Meanwhile, this flux correlation indicates that electron injection is the main mechanism for variability origin. We also explore the variation of the flux ratio $F_γ/F_R$ and the detailed structures in the lightcurves, and discuss some possible origins for the detailed variability behaviors.

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Constraints on the location of $γ$-ray emitting region for a sample of blazars with radio core-shift measurements

We model simultaneous or quasi-simultaneous multi-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) for a sample of 25 blazars that have radio core-shift measurements, where a one-zone leptonic model and Markov chain Monte Carlo technique are adopted. In the SED fitting for 23 low-synchrotron-peaked (LSP) blazars, the seed photons from broad line region (BLR) and molecular torus are considered respectively in the external Compton process. We find that the SED fitting with the seed photons from the torus are better than those utilizing BLR photons, which suggests that the $γ$-ray emitting region may be located outside the BLR. Assuming the magnetic field strength in the $γ$-ray emitting region as constrained from the SED fitting follows the magnetic field distribution as derived from the radio core-shift measurements (i.e., $B(R)\simeq B_{\rm 1 pc}(R/\rm 1pc)^{-1}$, $R$ is the distance from the central engine and $B_{\rm 1 pc}$ is the magnetic field strength at 1 pc), we further calculate the location of the $γ$-ray emitting region, $R_γ$, for these blazars. We find that $R_γ\sim2\times10^{4}R_{\rm S}\simeq10 R_{\rm BLR}$ ($R_{\rm S}$ is the Schwarzschild radius and $R_{\rm BLR}$ is the BLR size), where $R_{\rm BLR}$ is estimated from the broad line luminosities using the empirical correlations obtained using the reverberation mapping methods.

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The possible submillimeter bump and accretion-jet in the central supermassive black hole of NGC 4993

NGC 4993, as a host galaxy of the electromagnetic counterpart of the first gravitational-wave detection of a binary neutron-star merger, was observed by many powerful telescopes from radio to $γ$-ray waveband. The weak nuclear activities of NGC 4993 suggest that it is a low-luminosity active galactic nuclear (LLAGN). We build the multi-waveband spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of NGC 4993 from literatures. We find that the radio spectrum at $\sim 100-300$ GHz is much steeper than that of low-frequency waveband (e.g., 6-100 GHz), where this break was also found in the supermassive black holes in our galaxy center (Sgr A*), and in some other nearby AGNs. The radio emission above and below this break may has different physical origins, which provide an opportunity to probe the accretion and jet properties. We model the multi-waveband SEDs of NGC 4993 with an advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF)-jet model. We find that the high-frequency steep radio emission at millimeter waveband is consistent with the prediction of the ADAF, while the low-frequency flat radio spectrum is better fitted by the jet. Further more, the X-ray emission can be also explained by the ADAF model simultaneously. From the model fits, we estimate important parameters of the central engine (e.g., accretion rate near the horizon of the black hole and mass-loss rate in jet) for NGC 4993. This result strengthen that the millimiter, submillimer and deep X-ray observations are crucial to understand the weak or quiescent activities in supermassive black-hole systems. Further simultaneous millimeter and X-ray monitoring of this kind of LLAGNs will help us to better understand the physical origin of multiwaveband emission.

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The multiwavelength spectrum of NGC 3115: Hot accretion flow properties

NGC 3115 is the nearest galaxy hosting a billion solar mass black hole and is also a low-luminosity active galactic nucleus (LLAGN). X-ray observations of this LLAGN are able to spatially resolve the hot gas within the sphere of gravitational influence of the supermassive black hole. These observations make NGC 3115 an important testbed for black hole accretion theory in galactic nuclei since they constrain the outer boundary conditions of the hot accretion flow. We present a compilation of the multiwavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) of the nucleus of NGC 3115 from radio to X-rays. We report the results from modeling the observed SED with radiatively inefficient accretion flow (RIAF) models. The radio emission can be well-explained by synchrotron emission from the RIAF without the need for contribution from a relativistic jet. We obtain a tight constraint on the RIAF density profile, $ρ(r) \propto r^{-0.73_{-0.02} ^{+0.01}}$, implying that mass-loss through subrelativistic outflows from the RIAF is significant. The lower frequency radio observation requires the synchrotron emission from a nonthermal electron population in the RIAF, similarly to Sgr A*.

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Determine the Lorentz factor and the viewing angle of GRB 170817A

GRB 170817A is a weak short gamma-ray burst (GRB) accompanied by the gravitational wave (GW) event GW170817. It is believed, that an off beaming relativistic jet, produces this weak GRB. Here we use the $E_{\rm p,i}- E_{\rm iso}$ and $Γ- E_{\rm iso}$ relations to determine the Lorentz factor $Γ$ and the viewing angle from the edge of the jet $θ'_{\rm obs}$ of GRB 170817A. Our result shows, $Γ= 13.4 ^{+9.8}_{-5.5}$ and $θ'_{\rm obs} = 4.3^{+1.8}_{-1.5} \,^{\circ}$. This corresponds to the on-axis $E_{\rm p,i} = 415^{+361}_{-167}$ keV and $E_{\rm iso} = (2.4^{+1.6}_{-1.9}) \times 10^{47}$ ergs of the GRB, which is an intrinsically weak short GRB. Interestingly, the Doppler factor and the luminosity follow a universal relation from GRBs and blazars, which indicates they may share similar radiation mechanism.

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Constraint on the black-hole spin of M87 from the accretion-jet model

The millimeter bump, as found in high-resolution multi-waveband observations of M87, most possibly comes from the synchrotron emission of thermal electrons in advection dominated accretion flow(ADAF). It is possible to constrain the accretion rate near the horizon if both the nuclear millimeter emission and its polarization are produced by the hot plasma in the accretion flow. The jet power of M87 has been extensively explored, which is around $8_{\rm -3}^{+7}\times10^{42} {\rm erg/s}$ based on the analysis of the X-ray cavity. The black hole(BH) spin can be estimated if the jet power and the accretion rate near the horizon are known. We model the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) of M87 with a coupled ADAF-jet model surrounding a Kerr BH, where the full set of relativistic hydrodynamical equations of the ADAF are solved. The hybrid jet formation model, as a variant of Blandford-Znajek model, is used to model the jet power. We find that the SMBH should be fast rotating with a dimensionless spin parameter $a_{*}\simeq0.98_{\rm -0.02}^{+0.012}$.

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Modified viscosity in accretion disks. Application to Galactic black hole binaries, intermediate mass black holes and AGN

Black holes (BHs) surrounded by accretion disks are present in the Universe at different scales of masses, from microquasars up to the active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The current picture remains ad hoc due to the complexity of the magnetic field action. In addition, accretion disks at high Eddington rates can be radiation-pressure dominated and, according to some of the heating prescriptions, thermally unstable. The observational verification of their resulting variability patterns may shed light on both the role of radiation pressure and magnetic fields. We compute the structure and time evolution of an accretion disk, using the code GLADIS (which models the global accretion disk instability). We supplement this model with a modified viscosity prescription, which can to some extent describe the magnetisation of the disk. We study the results for a large grid of models, to cover the whole parameter space, and we derive conclusions separately for different scales of black hole masses, which are characteristic for various types of cosmic sources. We show the dependencies between the flare or outburst duration, its amplitude, and period, on the accretion rate and viscosity scaling. We show that if the heating rate in the accretion disk grows more rapidly with the total pressure and temperature, the instability results in longer and sharper flares. In general, we confirm that the disks around the supermassive black holes are more radiation-pressure dominated and present relatively brighter bursts. Our method can also be used as an independent tool for the black hole mass determination, which we confront now for the intermediate black hole in the source HLX-1.

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The universal "heartbeat" oscillations in black hole systems accross the mass-scale

The hyperluminous X-ray source (HLX-1, the peak X-ray luminosity $\sim 10^{42}\rm erg\ s^{-1}$) near the spiral galaxy ESO 243-49 is possibly the best candidate for intermediate mass black hole (IMBH), which underwent recurrent outbursts with a period of $\sim 400$ days. The physical reason for this quasi-periodic variability is still unclear. We explore the possibility of radiation-pressure instability in accretion disk by modeling the light curve of HLX-1, and find that it can roughly reproduce the duration, period and amplitude of the recurrent outbursts HLX-1 with an IMBH of ~10^5Msun. Our result provides a possible mechanism to explain the recurrent outbursts in HLX-1. We further find a universal correlation between the outburst duration and the bolometric luminosity for the BH sources with a very broad mass range (e.g., X-ray binaries, XRBs, HLX-1 and active galactic nuclei, AGNs), which is roughly consistent with the prediction of radiation-pressure instability of the accretion disk. These results imply that "heartbeat" oscillations triggered by radiation-pressure instability may appears in different-scale BH systems.

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On the origin of the HLX-1 outbursts

HLX-1, currently the best intermediate-mass black hole candidate, has undergone seven violent outbursts, each with a peak X-ray luminosity of $L_{\mathrm{peak},\mathrm{X}}\sim 10^{42}\ \rm{erg\ s^{-1}}$. Interestingly, the properties of the HLX-1 outbursts evolve with time. In this work, we aim to constrain the physical parameters of the central engine of the HLX-1 outbursts in the framework of the black hole accretion. We find that the physical properties of the HLX-1 outbursts are consistent with being driven by the radiation pressure instability. This scenario can explain the evolution of the recurrent timescales of the HLX-1 outbursts as a function of the durations.

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An accretion-jet model for M87: interpreting the spectral energy distribution and Faraday rotation measure

M87 is arguably the best supermassive black hole (BH) to explore the jet and/or accretion physics due to its proximity and fruitful high-resolution multi-waveband observations. We model the multi-wavelength spectral energy distribution (SED) of M87 core that observed at a scale of 0.4 arcsec ($\sim 10^5R_{\rm g}$, $R_{\rm g}$ is gravitational radius) as recently presented by Prieto et al. Similar to Sgr A*, we find that the millimeter bump as observed by Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) can be modeled by the synchrotron emission of the thermal electrons in advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF), while the low-frequency radio emission and X-ray emission may dominantly come from the jet. The millimeter radiation from ADAF dominantly come from the region within $10R_{\rm g}$, which is roughly consistent with the recent very long baseline interferometry observations at 230\,GHz. We further calculate the Faraday rotation measure (RM) from both ADAF and jet models, and find that the RM predicted from the ADAF is roughly consistent with the measured value while the RM predicted from the jet is much higher if jet velocity close to the BH is low or moderate (e.g., $v_{\rm jet}\lesssim0.6\,c$). With the constraints from the SED modeling and RM, we find that the accretion rate close to the BH horizon is $\sim (0.2-1)\times10^{-3}{M}_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}\ll\dot{\it M}_{\rm B}\sim 0.2\it {M}_{\odot} \rm yr^{-1}$ ($\dot{M}_{\rm B}$ is Bondi accretion rate), where the electron density profile, $n_{\rm e}\propto r^{\sim -1}$, in the accretion flow is consistent with that determined from X-ray observation inside the Bondi radius and recent numerical simulations.

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On the origin of the soft photons of the high synchrotron peaked blazar : PKS 1424+240

PKS 1424+240 is a distant very high energy gamma-ray BL Lac object with redshift $z=0.601$. It was found that pure synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) process normally need extreme input parameters (e.g., very low magnetic field intensity and extraordinarily large Doppler factor) to explain its multi-wavelength spectral energy distributions (SEDs). To avoid the extreme model parameters, different models have been proposed (e.g., two-zone SSC model or lepto-hadronic model). In this work, we employ the traditional one-zone leptonic model after including a weak external Compton component to re-explore the simultaneous multi-wavelength SEDs of PKS 1424+240 in both high (2009) and low (2013) states. We find that the input parameters of magnetic field and Doppler factor are roughly consistent with those of other BL Lacs if a weak external photon field from either broad line region (BLR) or the dust torus. However, the required energy density of seed photons from BLR or torus is about 3 orders of magnitude less than that constrained in luminous quasars (e.g., flat-spectrum radio quasars, FSRQs). This result suggests that the BLR/torus in BL Lacs is much weaker than that of luminous FSRQs (but not fully disappear), and the inverse-Compton of external photons from BLR/torus may still play a role even in high synchrotron peaked blazars.

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Revisit the fundamental plane of black-hole activity from sub-Eddington to quiescent state

It is very controversial whether radio--X-ray correlation as defined in LH state of XRBs can extend to quiescent state (e.g., X-ray luminosity less than a critical value of $L_{\rm X,c} \sim10^{-5.5}L_{\rm Edd}$) or not. In this work, we collect a sample of XRBs and low luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs) with wide distribution of Eddington ratios to reexplore the fundamental plane between 5 GHz radio luminosity, $L_{\rm R}$, 2-10 keV X-ray luminosity, $L_{\rm X}$, and black hole (BH) mass, $M_{\rm BH}$, namely $\log L_{\rm R}=ξ_{\rm X} \log L_{\rm X}+ξ_{\rm M}\log M_{\rm BH}+\rm constant$. For the whole sample, we confirm the former fundamental plane of Merloni et al. and Falcke et al. that $ξ_{\rm X}\sim 0.6$ and $ξ_{\rm M}\sim 0.8$ even after including more quiescent BHs. The quiescent BHs follow the fundamental plane very well, and, however, FR I radio galaxies follow a steeper track comparing other BH sources. After excluding FR Is, we investigate the fundamental plane for BHs in quiescent state with $L_{\rm X}< L_{\rm X,c}$ and sub-Eddington BHs with $L_{\rm X}> L_{\rm X,c}$ respectively, and both subsamples have a similar slope, $ξ_{\rm X}\sim0.6$, which support that quiescent BHs may behave similar to those in low-hard state. We further select two subsamples of AGNs with BH mass in a narrow range (FR Is with $M_{\rm BH}=10^{8.8\pm0.4}$ and other LLAGNs with $M_{\rm BH}=10^{8.0\pm0.4}$) to simulate the behavior of a single supermassive BH evolving from sub-Eddington to quiescent state. We find that the highly sub-Eddington sources with $L_{\rm X}/L_{\rm Edd}\sim10^{-6}-10^{-9}$ still roughly stay on the extension of radio--X-ray correlation as defined by other sub-Eddington BHs. Our results are consistent with several recent observations in XRBs that the radio--X-ray correlation as defined in low-hard state can extend to highly sub-Eddington quiescent state.

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The extension of variability properties in gamma-ray bursts to blazars

Both gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and blazars have relativistic jets pointing at a small angle from our line of sight. Several recent studies suggested that these two kinds of sources may share similar jet physics. In this work, we explore the variability properties for GRBs and blazars as a whole. We find that the correlation between minimum variability timescale (MTS) and Lorentz factor, $Γ$, as found only in GRBs by Sonbas et al. can be extended to blazars with a joint correlation of $\rm MTS\proptoΓ^{-4.7\pm0.3}$. The same applies to the $\rm MTS\propto \it L_γ^{\rm -1.0\pm0.1}$ correlation as found in GRBs, which can be well extended into blazars as well. These results provide further evidence that the jets in these two kinds of sources are similar despite of the very different mass scale of their central engines. Further investigations of the physical origin of these correlations are needed, which can shed light on the nature of the jet physics.

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