arXiv subjects

Ruo-Yu Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Ruo-Yu Liu.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Analytical treatment for the development of electromagnetic cascades in intense magnetic fields

In a strong magnetic field, a high-energy photon can be absorbed and then produce an electron-positron pair. The produced electron/positron will in turn radiate a high-energy photon via synchrotron radiation, which then initiates a cascade. We built a one-dimensional Monte-Carlo code to study the development of the cascade especially after it reaches the saturated status, when almost all the energy of the primary particles transfers to the photons. The photon spectrum in this status has a cut-off due to the absorption by magnetic fields, which is much sharper than the exponential one. Below the cut-off, the spectral energy distribution (SED) manifest itself as a broken power-law with a spectral index of $0.5$ and $0.125$, respectively, below and above the broken energy. The SED can be fitted by a simple analytical function, which is solely determined by the product of the cascade scale $R$ and the magnetic field perpendicular to the motion of the particle B_{\perp}, with an accuracy better than 96\%. The similarity of the spectrum to that from the cascade in an isotropic black-body photon field is also studied.

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arXiv2018

Can winds driven by active galactic nuclei account for the extragalactic gamma-ray and neutrino backgrounds?

Various observations are revealing the widespread occurrence of fast and powerful winds in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that are distinct from relativistic jets, likely launched from accretion disks and interacting strongly with the gas of their host galaxies. During the interaction, strong shocks are expected to form that can accelerate non-thermal particles to high energies. Such winds have been suggested to be responsible for a large fraction of the observed extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGB) in the GeV-TeV range and the diffuse neutrino background in the PeV range, via the decay of neutral and charged pions generated in inelastic $pp$ collisions between protons accelerated by the forward shock and the ambient gas. However, previous studies did not properly account for processes such as adiabatic losses that may reduce the gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes significantly. We evaluate the production of gamma-rays and neutrinos by AGN-driven winds in some detail by modeling their hydrodynamic and thermal evolution, including the effects of their two-temperature structure. We find that they can only account for less than $\sim 30$% of the EGB flux, as otherwise the model would violate the independent upper limit derived from the diffuse isotropic gamma-ray background. If the neutrino spectral index is steep with $Γ\gtrsim 2.2$, a severe tension with the isotropic gamma-ray background would arise as long as the winds contribute more than $20$% of the IceCube neutrino flux in the $10-100$TeV range. Nevertheless, at energies $\gtrsim100$~TeV, we find that the IceCube neutrino flux may still be accountable by AGN-driven winds if the spectral index is as small as $Γ\sim2.0-2.1$. The detectability of gamma-ray point sources also provides important constraints on such scenarios.

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arXiv2018

Hadronic origin of prompt high-energy emission of gamma-ray bursts revisited: in the case of a limited maximum proton energy

The high-energy (> 100MeV) emission observed by Fermi-LAT during the prompt phase of some luminous gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could arise from the cascade induced by interactions between accelerated protons and the radiation field of GRBs. The photomeson process, which is usually suggested to operate in such a hadronic explanation, requires a rather high proton energy (> 10^17eV) for an efficient interaction. However, whether GRBs can accelerate protons to such a high energy is far from guaranteed, although they have been suggested as the candidate source for ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. In this work, we revisit the hadronic model for the prompt high-energy emission of GRBs with a smaller maximum proton energy than the usually adopted value estimated from the Bohm condition. In this case, the Bethe-Heitler pair production process becomes comparably important or even dominates over the photomeson process. We show that with a relatively low maximum proton energy with a Lorentz factor of 10^5 in the comoving frame, the cascade emission can still reproduce various types of high-energy spectrum of GRBs. For most GRBs without high-energy emission detected, the maximum proton energy could be even lower and relax the constraints on the parameters of GRB jet resulting from the fact of non-detection of GRB neutrinos by IceCube.

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arXiv2017

Evidence of an Internal Dissipation Origin for the High-energy Prompt Emission of GRB 170214A

The origin of the prompt high-energy ($>100$MeV) emission of Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs), detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, is still under debate, for which both the external shock origin and internal dissipation origin have been suggested. In the internal dissipation scenario, the high energy emission is expected to exhibit significant temporal variability, tracking the keV/MeV fast variable behavior. Here, we report a detailed analysis on the Fermi data of GRB~170214A, which is sufficiently bright in the high energy to enable a quantitative analysis of the correlation between high-energy emission and keV/MeV emission with high statistics. Our result shows a clear temporal correlation between high-energy and keV/MeV emission in the whole prompt emission phase as well as in two decomposed short time intervals. Such correlation behavior is also found in some other bright LAT GRBs, i.e., GRB 080916C, 090902B and 090926A. For these GRBs as well as GRB 090510, we also find the rapid temporal variability in the high-energy emission. We thus conclude that the prompt high-energy emission in these bright LAT GRBs should be due to internal origin.

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arXiv2017

Particle Acceleration in Mildly Relativistic Shearing Flows: the Interplay of Systematic and Stochastic Effects, and the Origin of the Extended High-energy Emission in AGN Jets

The origin of the extended X-ray emission in the large-scale jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) poses challenges to conventional models of acceleration and emission. Although the electron synchrotron radiation is considered the most feasible radiation mechanism, the formation of the continuous large-scale X-ray structure remains an open issue. As astrophysical jets are expected to exhibit some turbulence and shearing motion, we here investigate the potential of shearing flows to facilitate an extended acceleration of particles and evaluate its impact on the resultant particle distribution. Our treatment incorporates systematic shear and stochastic second-order Fermi effects. We show that for typical parameters applicable to large-scale AGN jets, stochastic second-order Fermi acceleration, which always accompanies shear particle acceleration, can play an important role in facilitating the whole process of particle energization. We study the time-dependent evolution of the resultant particle distribution in the presence of second-order Fermi acceleration, shear acceleration, and synchrotron losses using a simple Fokker--Planck approach and provide illustrations for the possible emergence of a complex (multicomponent) particle energy distribution with different spectral branches. We present examples for typical parameters applicable to large-scale AGN jets, indicating the relevance of the underlying processes for understanding the extended X-ray emission and the origin of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays.

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arXiv2017

Evidence of a spectral break in the gamma-ray emission of the disk component of Large Magellanic Cloud: a hadronic origin?

It has been suggested that high-energy gamma-ray emission ($>100{\rm MeV}$) of nearby star-forming galaxies may be produced predominantly by cosmic rays colliding with the interstellar medium through neutral pion decay. The pion-decay mechanism predicts a unique spectral signature in the gamma-ray spectrum, characterized by a fast rising spectrum and a spectral break below a few hundreds of MeV. We here report the evidence of a spectral break around 500 MeV in the disk emission of Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which is found in the analysis of the gamma-ray data extending down to 60 MeV observed by {\it Fermi}-Large Area Telescope. The break is well consistent with the pion-decay model for the gamma-ray emission, although leptonic models, such as the electron bremsstrahlung emission, cannot be ruled out completely.

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arXiv2017

Neutrino Production in Electromagnetic Cascades: An extra component of cosmogenic neutrino at ultrahigh energies

Muon pairs can be produced in the annihilation of ultra-high energy (UHE, $E \gtrsim 10^{18} \,\mathrm{eV}$) photons with low energy cosmic background radiation in the intergalactic space, giving birth to neutrinos. Although the branching ratio of muon pair production is low, products of other channels, which are mainly electron/positron pairs, will probably transfer most of their energies into the new generated UHE photon in the subsequent interaction with the cosmic background radiation via Compton scattering in deep Klein-Nishina regime. The regeneration of these new UHE photons then provides a second chance to produce the muon pairs, enhancing the neutrino flux. We investigate the neutrino production in the propagation of UHE photons in the intergalactic space at different redshifts, considering various competing processes such as pair production, double pair production for UHE photons, and triplet production and synchrotron radiation for UHE electrons. Regarding the least energetic outgoing particles as energy loss, we obtain the effective penetration length of the leading particle, as well as energy loss rate including the neutrino emission rate in the cascade process. Finally, we find that an extra component of UHE neutrinos will arise from the propagation of UHE cosmic rays due to the generated UHE photons and electron/positrons. However, the flux of this component is quite small, with a flux of at most $10\%$ of that of the conventional cosmogenic neutrino at a few EeV, in the absence of a strong intergalactic magnetic field and a strong cosmic radio background. The precise contribution of extra component depends on several factors, e.g., cosmic radio background, intergalactic magnetic field, the spectrum of proton, which will be discussed in this work.

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arXiv2016

Modeling the gamma-ray emission in the Galactic Center with a fading cosmic-ray accelerator

Recent HESS observations of the ~200 pc scale diffuse gamma-ray emission from the central molecular zone (CMZ) suggest the presence of a PeV cosmic-ray accelerator (PeVatron) located in the inner 10 pc region of the Galactic Center. Interestingly, the gamma-ray spectrum of the point-like source (HESS J1745-290) in the Galactic Center shows a cutoff at ~10 TeV, implying a cutoff around 100 TeV in the cosmic-ray proton spectrum. Here we propose that the gamma-ray emission from the inner and the outer regions may be explained self-consistently by run-away protons from a single, yet fading accelerator. In this model, gamma rays from the CMZ region are produced by protons injected in the past, while gamma rays from the inner region are produced by protons injected more recently. We suggest that the blast wave formed in a tidal disruption event (TDE) caused by the supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) could serve as such a fading accelerator. With typical parameters of the TDE blast wave, gamma-ray spectra of both the CMZ region and HESS J1745-290 can be reproduced simultaneously. Meanwhile, we find that the cosmic-ray energy density profile in the CMZ region may also be reproduced in the fading accelerator model when appropriate combinations of the particle injection history and the diffusion coefficient of cosmic rays are adopted.

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arXiv2016

Indication of a Local "Fog" of Sub-Ankle UHECR

During their propagation through intergalactic space, ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) interact with the background radiation fields. These interactions give rise to energetic electron/positron pairs and photons which in turn feed electromagnetic cascades, contributing to the isotropic gamma-ray background (IGRB). The gamma-ray flux level generated in this way highly depends upon the UHECR propagation distance, as well as the evolution of their sources with redshift. Recently, the Fermi-LAT collaboration reported that the majority of the total extragalactic gamma-ray flux originates from extragalactic point sources. This posits a stringent upper limit on the IGRB generated via UHECR propagation, and subsequently constrains their abundance in the distant Universe. Focusing on the contribution of UHECR at energies below the ankle within a narrow energy band ($(1-4)\times 10^{18}$eV), we calculate the diffuse gamma-ray flux generated through UHECR propagation, normalizing the total cosmic ray energy budget in this band to that measured. We find that in order to not over-produce the new IGRB limit, a local "fog" of UHECR produced by nearby sources may exist, with a possible non-negligible contribution from our Galaxy. Following the assumption that a given fraction of the observed IGRB at 820GeV originates from UHECR, we obtain a constraint on the maximum distance for the majority of their sources. With other unresolved source populations still contaminating the new IGRB limit, and UHECR above the ankle invariably contributing also to this background, the results presented here are rather conservative.

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arXiv2016

How far are the sources of IceCube neutrinos? Constraints from the diffuse TeV gamma-ray background

The nearly isotropic distribution of the TeV-PeV neutrinos recently detected by IceCube suggests that they come from sources at distance beyond our Galaxy, but how far they are is largely unknown due to lack of any associations with known sources. In this paper, we propose that the cumulative TeV gamma-ray emission accompanying the production of neutrinos can be used to constrain the distance of these neutrino sources, since the opacity of TeV gamma rays due to absorption by the extragalactic background light (EBL) depends on the distance that these TeV gamma rays have travelled. As the diffuse extragalactic TeV background measured by \emph{Fermi} is much weaker than the expected cumulative flux associated with IceCube neutrinos, the majority of IceCube neutrinos, if their sources are transparent to TeV gamma rays, must come from distances larger than the horizon of TeV gamma rays. We find that above 80\% of the IceCube neutrinos should come from sources at redshift $z>0.5$. Thus, the chance for finding nearby sources correlated with IceCube neutrinos would be small. We also find that, to explain the flux of neutrinos under the TeV gamma-ray emission constraint, the redshift evolution of neutrino source density must be at least as fast as the the cosmic star-formation rate.

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arXiv2016

Testing the equivalence principle and Lorentz invariance with PeV neutrinos from blazar flares

It was recently proposed that a giant flare of the blazar PKS B1424-418 at redshift $z=1.522$ is in association with a PeV-energy neutrino event detected by IceCube. Based on this association we here suggest that the flight time difference between the PeV neutrino and gamma-ray photons from blazar flares can be used to constrain the violations of equivalence principle (EP) and the Lorentz invariance for neutrinos. From the calculated Shapiro delay due to clusters or superclusters in the nearby universe, we find that violation of the equivalence principle for neutrinos and photons is constrained to an accuracy of at least $10^{-5}$, which is two orders of magnitude tighter than the constraint placed by MeV neutrinos from supernova 1987A. Lorentz invariance violation (LIV) arises in various quantum-gravity theories, which predicts an energy-dependent velocity of propagation in vacuum for photons and neutrinos. We find that the association of the PeV neutrino with the gamma-ray outburst set limits on the energy scale of possible LIV to $> 0.01 E_{pl}$ for linear LIV models and $>6\times 10^{-8} E_{pl}$ for quadratic order LIV models, where $E_{pl}$ is the Planck energy scale. These are the most stringent constraints on neutrino LIV for subluminal neutrinos.

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arXiv2016

First detection of GeV emission from an ultraluminous infrared galaxy: Arp 220 as seen with the Fermi Large Area Telescope

Cosmic rays (CRs) in starburst galaxies produce high energy gamma-rays by colliding with the dense interstellar medium (ISM). Arp 220 is the nearest ultra luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) that has star-formation at extreme levels, so it has long been predicted to emit high-energy gamma-rays. However, no evidence of gamma-ray emission was found despite intense efforts of search. Here we report the discovery of high-energy gamma-ray emission above 200 MeV from Arp 220 at a confidence level of $\sim 6.3 σ$ using 7.5 years of \textsl {Fermi} Large Area Telescope observations. The gamma-ray emission shows no significant variability over the observation period and it is consistent with the quasi-linear scaling relation between the gamma-ray luminosity and total infrared luminosity for star-forming galaxies, suggesting that these gamma-rays arise from CR interactions. As the high density medium of Arp 220 makes it an ideal CR calorimeter, the gamma-ray luminosity can be used to measure the efficiency of powering CRs by supernova (SN) remnants given a known supernova rate in Arp 220. We find that this efficiency is about $4.2\pm2.6\%$ for CRs above 1 GeV.

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arXiv2015

Tidal disruption jets of supermassive black holes as hidden sources of cosmic rays: explaining the IceCube TeV-PeV neutrinos

Cosmic ray interactions that produce high-energy neutrinos also inevitably generate high-energy gamma rays, which finally contribute to the diffuse high-energy gamma-ray background after they escape the sources. It was recently found that, the high flux of neutrinos at $\sim30$ TeV detected by IceCube lead to a cumulative gamma-ray flux exceeding the Fermi isotropic gamma-ray background at 10-100 GeV, implying that the neutrinos are produced by hidden sources of cosmic rays, where GeV-TeV gamma-rays are not transparent. Here we suggest that relativistic jets in tidal disruption events (TDEs) of supermassive black holes are such hidden sources. We consider the jet propagation in an extended,optically thick envelope around the black hole, which is resulted from the ejected material during the disruption. While powerful jets can break free from the envelope, less powerful jets would be choked inside the envelope. The jets accelerate cosmic rays through internal shocks or reverse shocks and further produce neutrinos via interaction with the surrounding dense medium or photons. All three TDE jets discovered so far are not detected by Fermi/LAT, suggesting that GeV-TeV gamma-rays are absorbed in these jets. The cumulative neutrino flux from TDE jets can account for the neutrino flux observed by IceCube at PeV energies and may also account for the higher flux at $\sim30$ TeV if less powerful, choked jets are present in the majority of TDEs.

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arXiv2015

Star-forming galaxies as the origin of the IceCube PeV neutrinos

Star-forming galaxies, due to their high star-formation rates and hence large number of supernova remnants therein, are huge reservoirs of cosmic rays (CRs). These CRs collide with gases in the galaxies and produce high-energy neutrinos through $pp$ collisions. In this paper, we calculate the neutrino production efficiency in star-forming galaxies by considering realistic galaxy properties, such as the gas density and galactic wind in star-forming galaxies. To calculate the accumulated neutrino flux, we use the infrared luminosity function of star-forming galaxies obtained by {\em Herschel} PEP/HerMES survey recently. The intensity of CRs producing PeV neutrinos in star-forming galaxies is normalized with the observed CR flux at EeV ({1\,EeV=$10^{18}\,$eV}), assuming that supernova remnants or hypernova remnants in star-forming galaxies can accelerate protons to EeV energies. Our calculations show that the accumulated neutrino emission produced by CRs in star-forming galaxies can account for the flux and spectrum of the sub-PeV/PeV neutrinos under reasonable assumptions on the CR confinement time in these galaxies.

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arXiv2014

Diffuse PeV neutrinos from EeV cosmic ray sources: semi-relativistic hypernova remnants in star-forming galaxies

We argue that the excess of sub-PeV/PeV neutrinos recently reported by IceCube could plausibly originate through pion-production processes in the same sources responsible for cosmic rays (CRs) with energy above the second knee around $10^{18}\,$eV. The pion production efficiency for escaping CRs that produce PeV neutrinos is required to be $\gtrsim 0.1$ in such sources. On the basis of current data, we identify semi-relativistic hypernova remants as possible sources that satisfy the requirements. By virtue of their fast ejecta, such objects can accelerate protons to EeV energies, which in turn can interact with the dense surrounding medium during propagation in their host galaxies to produce sufficient high-energy neutrinos via proton--proton ($pp$) collisions. Their accompanying gamma ray flux can remain below the diffuse isotropic gamma ray background observed by the {\it Fermi} Large Area Telescope (LAT). In order to test this scenario and discriminate from alternatives, the density of target protons/nuclei and the residence time of CRs in the interacting region are crucial uncertainties that need to be clarified. As long as the neutrinos and EeV CRs originate from the same source class, detection of $\gtrsim 10\,$PeV neutrinos may be expected within 5-10 years' operation of IceCube. Together with further observations in the PeV range, the neutrinos can help in revealing the currently unknown sources of EeV CRs.

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arXiv2013

Constraints on the source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using anisotropy vs chemical composition

The joint analysis of anisotropy signals and chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays offers strong potential for shedding light on the sources of these particles. Following up on an earlier idea, this paper studies the anisotropies produced by protons of energy >E/Z, assuming that anisotropies at energy >E have been produced by nuclei of charge Z, which share the same magnetic rigidity. We calculate the number of secondary protons produced through photodisintegration of the primary heavy nuclei. Making the extreme assumption that the source does not inject any proton, we find that the source(s) responsible for anisotropies such as reported by the Pierre Auger Observatory should lie closer than ~20-30, 80-100 and 180-200 Mpc if the anisotropy signal is mainly composed of oxygen, silicon and iron nuclei respectively. A violation of this constraint would otherwise result in the secondary protons forming a more significant anisotropy signal at lower energies. Even if the source were located closer than this distance, it would require an extraordinary metallicity >120, 1600, 1100 times solar metallicity in the acceleration zone of the source, for oxygen, silicon and iron respectively, to ensure that the concomitantly injected protons not to produce a more significant low energy anisotropy. This offers interesting prospects for constraining the nature and the source of ultra-high energy cosmic rays with the increase in statistics expected from next generation detectors.

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arXiv2013

Interpretation of the unprecedentedly long-lived high-energy emission of GRB 130427A

High energy photons (>100 MeV) are detected by the Fermi/LAT from GRB 130427A up to almost one day after the burst, with an extra hard spectral component being discovered in the high-energy afterglow. We show that this hard spectral component arises from afterglow synchrotron-self Compton emission. This scenario can explain the origin of >10 GeV photons detected up to ~30000s after the burst, which would be difficult to be explained by synchrotron radiation due to the limited maximum synchrotron photon energy. The lower energy multi-wavelength afterglow data can be fitted simultaneously by the afterglow synchrotron emission. The implication of detecting the SSC emission for the circumburst environment is discussed.

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arXiv2013

On the origin of >10 GeV photons in gamma-ray burst afterglows

Fermi/LAT has detected long-lasting high-energy photons (>100 MeV) from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with the highest energy photons reaching about 100 GeV. One proposed scenario is that they are produced by high-energy electrons accelerated in GRB forward shocks via synchrotron radiation. We study the maximum synchrotron photon energy in this scenario, considering the properties of the microturbluence magnetic fields behind the shock, as revealed by recent Particle-in-Cell simulations and theoretical analyses of relativistic collisionless shocks. Due to the small-scale nature of the micro-turbulent magnetic field, the Bohm acceleration approximation breaks down at such high energies. This effect leads to a typical maximum synchrotron photon of a few GeV at 100 s after the burst and this maximum synchrotron photon energy decreases quickly with time. We show that the fast decrease of the maximum synchrotron photon energy leads to a fast decay of the synchrotron flux. The 10-100 GeV photons detected after the prompt phase can not be produced by the synchrotron mechanism. They could originate from the synchrotron self-Compton emission of the early afterglow if the circum-burst density is sufficiently large, or from the external inverse-Compton process in the presence of central X-ray emission, such as X-ray flares and prompt high-latitude X-ray emission.

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