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Ruizhi Yang

Publications and source records attributed to Ruizhi Yang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

ALP-mediated inelastic dark matter and the LUX-ZEPLIN high-recoil candidate event LZ230616

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Collaboration has reported a high-energy candidate event LZ230616 with a reconstructed nuclear recoil energy $E_R=248\pm23_{\rm stat}\pm23_{\rm sys}~{\rm keV}$. We investigate a possible interpretation in terms of inelastic scattering between two Majorana dark matter states mediated by an axionlike particle coupled to gluons. The positive mass splitting suppresses low-energy recoils, while the momentum dependence of the interaction reshapes the high-energy spectrum. We treat the dark-sector and gluonic couplings independently and retain the momentum-dependent nucleon form factors and xenon nuclear responses. Using an approximate single-event likelihood, we find that, for $m_a=0.3~{\rm GeV}$, a narrow spectrum near the candidate energy arises at $m_\chi\simeq0.35~{\rm TeV}$ and $\delta\simeq330~{\rm keV}$, although this configuration requires a large coupling product and is highly sensitive to the Galactic halo speed cutoff. Our analysis establishes the kinematic and coupling requirements for subsequent tests using the thermal relic abundance and laboratory constraints on the mediator.

hep-ph

Identification of a Large-Scale Diffuse Gamma-Ray Structure in the Southern Galactic Hemisphere

We identify and characterize a large-scale diffuse gamma-ray structure in the Southern Galactic Hemisphere using 17 yr of Fermi-LAT data. An energy-dependent likelihood analysis, including alternative Galactic diffuse-emission models, isotropic emission, the Fermi bubbles, and resolved 4FGL sources, reveals an extended excess that persists across the tested background models and spans tens of degrees. The excess broadly follows the X-ray-defined southern eROSITA Bubble (eB) region, while also overlapping the projected southern extension of Loop I. Template fits favor a filled eB-like morphology over the adopted Wolleben Loop I shell geometry, making the structure a plausible gamma-ray counterpart of the southern eB, although Loop-I-related or other localized foreground emission cannot be excluded. Under the eB template, the southern component is fainter and softer than the northern large-scale component, with an integrated luminosity lower by a factor of about seven, broadly consistent with the eROSITA-bubble asymmetry. If interpreted as Galactic-scale outflow emission, its faint, soft spectrum may indicate aged particles and/or distributed reacceleration in the outer bubble. A hadronic interpretation is energetically demanding, whereas a leptonic inverse-Compton scenario is more economical but requires rapid transport and/or local reacceleration of high-energy electrons.

astro-ph.HE

Astrophysical origins of TeV features in the cosmic-ray lepton spectrum

Precise measurements of high-energy cosmic-ray electrons and positrons have revealed spectral structures that are difficult to capture with a single smooth power-law background. The rising positron fraction measured by PAMELA and AMS-02, together with the all-electron excess reported by ATIC and the high-precision all-electron spectrum measured by DAMPE, has motivated interpretations ranging from nearby astrophysical accelerators to dark-matter annihilation or decay. In this work we revisit the conventional diffuse electron background and the possible contribution from nearby pulsars in a common propagation framework. The diffuse component is modeled with GALPROP configurations calibrated by cosmic-ray nuclei and diffuse gamma-ray observations. We then use the Green-function solution for nearby discrete sources with radiative losses to study pulsar contributions with both burst-like and continuous injection histories, including the effect of stochastic inverse-Compton cooling on the propagated spectra. We also use the highest-energy DAMPE data points as an illustrative case to compare possible local-source contributions from pulsars and supernova-remnant-like burst sources. The spectral shape of such features provides a useful diagnostic for distinguishing physically plausible nearby-source features from more exotic interpretations.

astro-ph.HE

Microquasar Cygnus X-3 as the PeVatron powering the Cygnus Bubble

The recent discovery by the LHAASO collaboration of a variable ultra-high-energy (UHE; $E_\gamma \ge$ 100 TeV) $\gamma$-ray source associated with the microquasar Cygnus X-3, with a spectrum extending to several PeV, provides compelling evidence for a hadronic super-PeVatron operating within the binary system. Inside the binary, the accelerated protons lose only a small fraction of their energy; upon escaping into the interstellar medium, they propagate diffusively to form a vast gamma-ray ``halo" structure extended to hundreds of parsecs. We argue that this halo has already been detected and corresponds to the Cygnus Bubble, an extended UHE $\gamma$-ray source reported by the LHAASO collaboration -- which possesses an angular extension of $\approx 6^{\circ}$ and an energy spectrum reaching 1 PeV. While the Cygnus Bubble is generally attributed to the star-forming region Cygnus X (specifically the Cygnus OB2 association at 1.4 kpc), we demonstrate that an association with Cygnus X-3 is physically more natural at energies above 400 TeV. This is supported by the cosmic-ray radial distribution, derived from the $\gamma$-ray and gas distributions, which points to continuous injection from a point-like source. The energetic requirements of the central accelerator are reasonably affordable and feasible. This reassignment identifies the Cygnus Bubble as a member of the recently discovered population of microquasar UHE $\gamma$-ray halos.

astro-ph.HE

Star Formation Drives Production of Low Energy Cosmic Rays

For over a century, the origin of low-energy cosmic rays (LECRs), the dominant heaters and ionizers of dense interstellar gas, remains elusive owing to solar modulation and uncertain transport processes. In this study, we introduce a new astrophysical approach based on HI Narrow Self-Absorption (HINSA) to obtain spatially resolved measurements of LECR ionization rates using high-fidelity HI observations toward the Orion region from the FAST telescope. The LECR ionization rate is found to scale with local star formation rate (SFR) as $log_{10}\zeta = (1.4\pm 0.70)log_{10}\mathrm{SFR} + (-10.5\pm 2.9)$. Moreover, it increases with visual extinction, and is found to exceed, toward active star-forming regions, the value predicted for diffuse regions based on \textit{Voyager} measurements and an external propagation model. These findings demonstrate that LECRs are generated in situ by star-forming activities rather than penetrating from the broader Galactic cosmic-ray population. This is further supported by \textit{Fermi}-LAT gamma-ray observations toward the Orion region. Together, these results resolve a key uncertainty in cosmic-ray origin and establish a new avenue for quantifying the energetic feedback that regulates the interstellar medium.

astro-ph.GA

Enhancing the Angular Resolution of Large Array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (LACT) at Ultra-High Energies

The Large Array of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (LACT) is dedicated to high-resolution morphological studies of PeVatrons. In this work, we present a fundamental investigation into stereoscopic direction reconstruction for the LACT array, specifically addressing the challenges of ultra-high-energy observations. We demonstrate that the standard Hillas parameterization introduces a significant reconstruction bias under severe image leakage. To mitigate this, we introduce an approach utilizing a 2D Gaussian fit, achieving an exceptional angular resolution of better than $0.06^\circ$ at $100\text{ TeV}$ within the central $0^\circ\text{--}1^\circ$ offset bin, and maintaining better than $0.12^\circ$ across offsets up to $4^{\circ}$. Building on this robust baseline, we evaluate advanced weighting schemes by utilizing a LightGBM-based quantile regression model to independently estimate single-image quality. Applying these quality-based weights yields a consistent improvement of $0.02^\circ$ to $0.03^\circ$ for high-energy, large-offset events using both the \textit{HillasWeightedSum} and \textit{HillasWeightedDisp} methods. Finally, to establish a theoretical performance ceiling, we explore a pixel-wise likelihood reconstruction technique utilizing Neural Ratio Estimation. While its practical realization depends heavily on minimizing the gap between Monte Carlo simulations and observational data, this exploratory approach demonstrates the potential to yield an overall improvement of approximately 15\% to 40\% at $100~\rm TeV$ across the entire field of view. Such high angular resolution is critical for disentangling complex emission regions and mapping the internal structures of PeVatrons.

astro-ph.HE

LLMEval-Logic: A Solver-Verified Chinese Benchmark for Logical Reasoning of LLMs with Adversarial Hardening

Evaluating large language models (LLMs) on natural-language logical reasoning is essential because rule-governed tasks require conclusions to follow strictly from stated premises. Many existing logical-reasoning benchmarks are generated by templating natural-language items from sampled formulas, provide only coarse or unaudited formal annotations, and are now quickly saturated by frontier reasoning models. We present LLMEval-Logic, a Chinese logical reasoning benchmark built from realistic situational scenarios. Its pipeline forward-authors and expert-audits natural-language items together with their reference formalizations, verifies annotated answers with Z3, constructs expert rubrics for natural-to-formal grading, and hardens selected items through a closed-loop adversarial workflow. The benchmark is released in two paired subsets: a 246-item Base subset shipped with 1,400 expert-developed rubric atoms, and a 190-item Hard subset with 938 multi-step sub-questions over closed model spaces. Evaluating 14 frontier LLMs on LLMEval-Logic reveals substantial gaps in current models: the best model reaches only 37.5% Hard Item Accuracy, and even with reference symbols the highest joint Z3+Rubric formalization score among evaluated models reaches only 60.16%. Our benchmark is publicly available at https://github.com/llmeval/LLMEval-Logic.

cs.CL

Unveiling axion signals in galactic supernovae with future MeV telescopes

Axion-like particles (ALPs) produced via the Primakoff process in the cores of Galactic core-collapse supernovae (SNe) could convert into MeV-energy gamma-rays through interactions with the Milky Way's magnetic field. To evaluate the detection prospects for such signals, we perform sensitivity projections for next-generation MeV telescopes by combining hypothetical instrument responses with realistic background estimates. Our analysis incorporates detailed simulations of the expected ALP flux from nearby SNe, the energy-dependent conversion probability in Galactic magnetic fields, and the telescope's angular/energy resolution based on advanced detector designs. Background components are modeled using data from current MeV missions and extrapolated to future sensitivity regimes. Our simulations demonstrate that next-generation telescopes with improved effective areas and energy resolution could achieve sensitivity to photon-ALP couplings as low as gagamma approx 1.61 x 10^-13 GeV^-1 for ALP masses ma < 10^-9 eV in Galactic Center. These results indicate that future MeV missions will probe unexplored regions of ALP parameter space, with conservative estimates suggesting they could constrain gagamma values two orders of magnitude below current astrophysical limits. Such observations would provide the most stringent tests to date for axion-like particles as a dark matter candidate in the ultra-light mass regime.

astro-ph.HE

Prospects for Observing the Microquasar SS 433 with the LACT Array

We investigate the observational capabilities of the upcoming LACT Cherenkov telescope array for the microquasar SS 433 through detailed simulations. Our results indicate that a detection significance of 5 sigma can be achieved with approximately 30 hours of observation. This exposure, coupled with LACT's excellent angular resolution, enables the spatial separation of the eastern and western jets. Furthermore, based on the LHAASO spectral and morphological findings, the array is expected to distinguish the central hadronic component after roughly 100 hours of observation. We also examine its ability to differentiate between the H.E.S.S. and LHAASO spectral models. These findings demonstrate LACT's strong potential to provide critical insights into particle acceleration in PeVatrons and the radiation mechanisms of microquasars.

astro-ph.HE

Performance of LACT Array: Instrument Response Functions and Source Prospects

Large Array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (LACT) is an array of 32 Cherenkov telescopes with 6-meter diameter mirrors to be constructed at the LHAASO site, aiming to enhance our understanding of ultra-high energy gamma ray astronomy. This work presents a detailed performance assessment of the LACT array, focusing on the IRFs for both an 8-telescope subarray configuration optimized for large zenith angle observations (60{\deg}) and the full 32-telescope array, with a particular emphasis on a 20{\deg} zenith angle configuration for lower energy threshold observations. We have generated IRFs using extensive Monte Carlo simulations of gamma-ray showers and the detector response. The IRFs include the effective area, angular resolution, and energy resolution as a function of energy and offset angle. Crucially, these IRFs are produced in the standard Data format for Gamma ray astronomy (GADF), ensuring interoperability with existing analysis tools like Gammapy and ctools and enabling seamless integration into scientific workflows. In this work, we also have used these GADF-format IRFs to simulate observations towards the Galactic Center Region.

astro-ph.HE

Comparing dimensionality reduction methods for local structural identification in colloidal systems

Quantifying local structures in self-assembled systems is a central challenge in soft matter and materials science. When no a priori knowledge of the relevant structures is available, traditional order parameters often fall short. Unsupervised machine learning provides a convenient route to autonomously uncover structural motifs directly from particle configurations. In this work, we systematically compare three popular dimensionality reduction techniques; Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Autoencoders (AE), and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP), for classifying local environments in self-assembled systems. We first apply these methods to fluid and crystal configurations of hard and charged spheres. Thereafter, we apply it to an icosahedral arrangement of spheres that self-assembled in spherical confinement, both from simulations as well as from experiments. We demonstrate that UMAP consistently outperforms the other methods in capturing complex structural features, offering a robust tool for structural classification without supervision.

cond-mat.soft

Low-Energy Cosmic Rays and Associated MeV Gamma-Ray Emissions in the Protoplanetary System

Low-energy cosmic rays (LECRs) play a crucial role in the formation of planetary systems, and detecting and reconstructing the properties of early LECRs is essential for understanding the mechanisms of planetary system formation. Given that LECRs interact with the surrounding medium to produce nuclear de-excitation line emissions, which are gamma-ray emissions with energy mainly within 0.1--10 MeV and are unaffected by stellar wind modulation, these emissions can accurately reflect the properties of LECRs. This study introduces an innovative method for using gamma-ray emissions to infer LECR properties. We employed the Parker transport equation to simulate the propagation and spectral evolution of LECRs in a protoplanetary disk and calculated the characteristic gamma-ray emissions resulting from interactions between LECRs and disk material. These gamma-ray emissions encapsulate the spectral information of LECRs, providing a powerful tool to reconstruct the cosmic ray environment at that time. This method, supported by further theoretical developments and observations, will fundamentally enhance our understanding of the impact of CRs on the origin and evolution of planetary systems and address significant scientific questions regarding the cosmic ray environment at the origin of life.

astro-ph.HE

Pseudo-Stereo Inputs: A Solution to the Occlusion Challenge in Self-Supervised Stereo Matching

Self-supervised stereo matching holds great promise by eliminating the reliance on expensive ground-truth data. Its dominant paradigm, based on photometric consistency, is however fundamentally hindered by the occlusion challenge -- an issue that persists regardless of network architecture. The essential insight is that for any occluders, valid feedback signals can only be derived from the unoccluded areas on one side of the occluder. Existing methods attempt to address this by focusing on the erroneous feedback from the other side, either by identifying and removing it, or by introducing additional regularities for correction on that basis. Nevertheless, these approaches have failed to provide a complete solution. This work proposes a more fundamental solution. The core idea is to transform the fixed state of one-sided valid and one-sided erroneous signals into a probabilistic acquisition of valid feedback from both sides of an occluder. This is achieved through a complete framework, centered on a pseudo-stereo inputs strategy that decouples the input and feedback, without introducing any additional constraints. Qualitative results visually demonstrate that the occlusion problem is resolved, manifested by fully symmetrical and identical performance on both flanks of occluding objects. Quantitative experiments thoroughly validate the significant performance improvements resulting from solving the occlusion challenge.

cs.CV

Constraining the low-energy cosmic ray flux in the central molecular zone from MeV nuclear deexcitation line observations

Low-energy cosmic rays (LECRs) dominate the ionization in dense regions of molecular clouds in which other ionizers such as UV or X-ray photons are effectively shielded. Thus it was argued that the high ionization rate at the central molecular zone (CMZ) of our Galaxy is mainly caused by LECRs. However, the required LECR flux is orders of magnitude higher than the extrapolation of GeV cosmic ray (CR) flux derived from GeV gamma-ray observations. In this paper, we considered two types of additional LECR components and found that only very soft anomalous CR components can explain such a high ionization rate. This LECR component will inevitably produce MeV nuclear deexcitation lines due to their inelastic scattering with the ambient gas. We calculated the MeV line emission and discussed the detectability of next-generation MeV instruments. We found that future MeV observations can be used to pin down the origin of the high ionization rate in the CMZ.

astro-ph.HE

Layout optimization and Performance of Large Array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (LACT)

Large Array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (LACT) is an array of 32 Cherenkov telescopes with 6-meter diameter mirrors to be constructed at the LHAASO site. In this work, we present a study on the layout optimization and performance analysis of LACT. We investigate two observation modes: large zenith angle observations for ultra-high energy events and small zenith angle observations for lower energy thresholds. For large zenith angles (60°), simulations show that an 8-telescope subarray can achieve an effective area of $3 ~\rm km^2$ and excellent angular resolution. For small zenith angles, we optimize the layout of 4-telescope cells and the full 32-telescope array. The threshold of the full array is about $200~\rm GeV$, which is particularly crucial for studying transient phenomena, including gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This study provides important guidance for the final LACT layout design and performance estimates under different observational conditions, demonstrating LACT's potential for deep observations of ultra-high energy \gray sources and morphological studies of PeVatrons, as well as time-domain \gray astronomy.

astro-ph.HE

Prospects for joint reconstruction of imaging air Cherenkov Telescope array and extensive air shower array

In this paper we proposed a joint reconstruction of \gray events using both extensive air array (EAS) and Imaging air Cherenkov Telescope array (IACT). We considered eight Cherenkov telescopes to be built on the LHAASO (Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory) site and investigate the improvement in differential sensitivity when combining the information from both IACT and Moun detectors of LHAASO-KM2A. We found that due to the higher cosmic ray background rejection power and higher gamma ray retention ratio provided by muon detectors of LHAASO, such a joint reconstruction can significantly improve the sensitivity of IACTs, especially for extended sources and long exposure time. In this article, we have shown the performance of an eight-telescopes mini array, and our results indicate that above $10~\rm TeV$, the sensitivity can be improved by muon detector from $25\% - 60\%$ in different energy ranges.

astro-ph.HE

Extended GeV $γ$-ray emission around the star forming region of the W3 complex

We analyze the GeV $γ$-ray emission from the W3 complex using about 14 years of Pass 8 data recorded by the $\it Fermi$ Large Area Telescope (\textit{Fermi}-LAT). We resolve the $γ$-ray emissions around W3 into two components: an elliptical Gaussian overlapping with the molecular gas and a point-like source near the cluster W3 Main. The pion-bump feature of SED for the elliptical Gaussian together with the better fitting result of pion decay model favor the hadronic origin. We further argue that the cosmic rays (CRs) could originate from the interactions between cluster winds and the shock produced by the SNR HB3. The point-like source positionally coincident with the star cluster W3 Main indicates it may be directly powered by near clusters, while its fainter $γ$-ray emissions below 10 GeV is possibly due to the shelter from dense gas making the low-energy CRs incapable of penetrating the dense materials. Meanwhile, we cannot rule out that the $γ$-ray emissions originate from the interaction of accelerated protons in SNR with the ambient gas.

astro-ph.HE

Precise measurement of pion-bump structure using future MeV gamma-ray detectors

The pion-bump structure in the gamma-ray spectrum is a direct proof for the hadronic origin of the gamma rays, and thus the decisive evidence for the acceleration of hadronic cosmic rays in astrophysical objects. However, the identification of such a spectral feature is limited by the resolution and energy coverage of current gamma-ray instruments. Furthermore, there are unavoidable bremsstrahlung emissions from secondary and primary electrons, which may dominate the gamma-ray emission below the pion-bump. Thus, the study of this gamma-ray emission component can provide unique information on the acceleration and confinement of high-energy particles. In this paper, we studied the predicted gamma-ray spectrum assuming both hadronic or leptonic origin in mid-aged supernova remnants W44, we discuss the detection potential of future MeV missions on these emissions and possible implications.

astro-ph.HE