Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Shuang Nan Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Shuang Nan Zhang.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2008

Cosmology-Independent Distance Moduli of 42 Gamma-Ray Bursts between Redshift of 1.44 and 6.60

This report is an update and extension of our paper accepted for publication in ApJ (arXiv:0802.4262). Since objects at the same redshift should have the same luminosity distance and the distance moduli of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) obtained directly from observations are completely cosmology independent, we obtain the distance modulus of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) at a given redshift by interpolating or iterating from the Hubble diagram of SNe Ia. Then we calibrate five GRB relations without assuming a particular cosmological model, from different regression methods, and construct the GRB Hubble diagram to constrain cosmological parameters. Based upon these relations we list the cosmology-independent distance moduli of 42 GRBs between redshift of 1.44 and 6.60, with the 1-$σ$ uncertainties of 1-3%.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Cosmological evolution of interacting phantom (quintessence) model in Loop Quantum Gravity

The dynamics of interacting dark energy model in loop quantum cosmology (LQC) is studied in this paper. The dark energy has a constant equation of state $w_x$ and interacts with dark matter through a form $3cH(ρ_x+ρ_m)$. We find for quintessence model ($w_x>-1$) the cosmological evolution in LQC is the same as that in classical Einstein cosmology; whereas for phantom dark energy ($w_x<-1$), although there are the same critical points in LQC and classical Einstein cosmology, loop quantum effect reduces significantly the parameter spacetime ($c, w_x$) required by stability. If parameters $c$ and $w_x$ satisfy the conditions that the critical points are existent and stable, the universe will enter an era dominated by dark energy and dark matter with a constant energy ratio between them, and accelerate forever; otherwise it will enter an oscillatory regime. Comparing our results with the observations we find at $1σ$ confidence level the universe will accelerate forever.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Evidence against non-cosmological redshifts of QSOs in SDSS data

In the unusual intrinsic QSO redshift models, QSOs are ejected by active galaxies with periodic non-cosmological reshifts, thus QSOs are generally associated with active galaxies, and certain structures will be revealed in the QSO redshift distribution. As the largest homogeneous sample of QSOs and galaxies, SDSS data provide the best opportunity to examine this issue. We review the debates on this issue, focused on those based on SDSS and 2dF data, and conclude that there is no strong connection between foreground active galaxies and high-redshift QSOs. The existence of two dips in the SDSS QSO redshift distribution at z=2.7 and 3.5 has recently re-ignited those controversial debates on the origin of QSO redshift. It also turned out that both dips are totally caused by selection effects and after selection effects have been corrected, the two dips disappear and no structure in the redshift distribution of SDSS DR5 sample. These results support that the reshifts of QSOs are cosmological.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

How to Distinguish Dark Energy and Modified Gravity?

The current accelerated expansion of our universe could be due to an unknown energy component (dark energy) or a modification to general relativity (modified gravity). In the literature, it has been proposed that combining the probes of the cosmic expansion history and growth history can distinguish between dark energy and modified gravity. In this work, without invoking non-trivial dark energy clustering, we show that the possible interaction between dark energy and dark matter could make the interacting dark energy model and the modified gravity model indistinguishable. An explicit example is also given. Therefore, it is required to seek some complementary probes beyond the ones of cosmic expansion history and growth history.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

A Super-high Angular Resolution Principle for Coded-mask X-ray Imaging Beyond the Diffraction Limit of Single Pinhole

High angular resolution X-ray imaging is always demanded by astrophysics and solar physics, which can be realized by coded-mask imaging with very long mask-detector distance in principle. Previously the diffraction-interference effect has been thought to degrade coded-mask imaging performance dramatically at low energy end with very long mask-detector distance. In this work the diffraction-interference effect is described with numerical calculations, and the diffraction-interference cross correlation reconstruction method (DICC) is developed in order to overcome the imaging performance degradation. Based on the DICC, a super-high angular resolution principle (SHARP) for coded-mask X-ray imaging is proposed. The feasibility of coded mask imaging beyond the diffraction limit of single pinhole is demonstrated with simulations. With the specification that the mask element size of 50* 50 square micrometers and the mask-detector distance of 50 m, the achieved angular resolution is 0.32 arcsec above about 10 keV, and 0.36 arcsec at 1.24 keV where diffraction can not be neglected. The on-axis source location accuracy is better than 0.02 arcsec. Potential applications for solar observations and wide-field X-ray monitors are also shortly discussed.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

The exact dynamical solution for two dust shells collapsing towards a black hole

The gravitational collapse of a star is an important issue both for general relativity and astrophysics, which is related to the well known "frozen star" paradox. Following the seminal work of Oppenheimer and Schneider (1939), we present the exact solution for two dust shells collapsing towards a pre-existing black hole. We find that the inner region of the shell is influenced by the property of the shell, which is contrary to the result in Newtonian theory and and the clock inside the shell becomes slower as the shell collapses towards the pre-existing black hole. This result in principle may be tested experimentally if a beam of light travels across the shell. We conclude that the concept of the "frozen star" should be abandoned, since matter can indeed cross a black hole's horizon according to the clock of an external observer. Since matter will not accumulate around the event horizon of a black hole, we predict that only gravitational wave radiation can be produced in the final stage of the merging process of two coalescing black holes. Our results also indicate that for the clock of an external observer, matter, after crossing the event horizon, will never arrive at the "singularity" (i.e. the exact center of the black hole.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Evolution of relativistic jets from XTE J1550-564 and the environment of microquasars

Two relativistic X-ray jets have been detected with the Chandra X-ray observatory in the black hole X-ray transient XTE J1550-564. We report a full analysis of the evolution of the two jets with a gamma-ray burst external shock model. A plausible scenario suggests a cavity outside the central source and the jets first travelled with constant velocity and then are slowed down by the interactions between the jets and the interstellar medium (ISM). The best fitted radius of the cavity is ~0.36 pc on the eastern side and ~0.46 pc on the western side, and the densities also show asymmetry, of ~0.015 cm$^{-3}$ on the east to ~0.21 cm$^{-3}$ on the west. Large scale low density region is also found in another microquasar system, H 1743-322. These results are consistent with previous suggestions that the environment of microquasars should be rather vacuous, compared to the normal Galactic environment. A generic scenario for microquasar jets is proposed, classifying the observed jets into three main categories, with different jet morphologies (and sizes) corresponding to different scales of vacuous environments surrounding them.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Constraints on the generalized tachyon field models from latest observational data

We consider constraints on generalized tachyon field (GTF) models from latest observational data (including 182 gold SNIa data, the shift parameter, and the acoustic scale). We obtain at 68.3% confidence level $Ω_{\rm m}=0.37\pm0.01$, $k_0=0.09^{+0.04}_{-0.03}$, $α=1.8^{+7.4}_{-0.7}$ (the best-fit values of the parameters) and $z_{q=0}\sim 0.47-0.51$ (the transitional redshift) for GTF as dark energy component only; $k_0=0.21^{+0.20}_{-0.18}$, $α=0.57\pm0.01$ and $z_{q=0}\sim 0.49-0.68$ for GTF as unification of dark energy and dark matter. In both cases, GTF evolves like dark matter in the early universe. By applying model-comparison statistics and test with independent $H(z)$ data, we find GTF dark energy scenario is favored over the $Λ$CDM model, and the $Λ$CDM model is favored over GTF unified dark matter by the combined data. For GTF as dark energy component, the fluctuations of matter density is consistent with the growth of linear density perturbations. For GTF unified dark matter, the growth of GTF density fluctuations grow more slowly for $a\to1$, meaning GTF do not behave as classical $Λ$CDM scenarios.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2008

Is the anti-correlation between the X-ray variability amplitude and black hole mass of AGNs intrinsic?

Aims. Both the black hole mass and the X-ray luminosity of AGNs have been found to be anti-correlated with the normalized excess variance ($σ_{\rm rms}^2 $) of the X-ray light curves. We investigate which correlation with $σ_{\rm rms}^2 $ is the intrinsic one. Methods. We divide a full sample of 33 AGNs (O' Neill et al. 2005) into two sub-samples. The black hole masses of 17 objects in sub-sample 1 were determined by the reverberation mapping or the stellar velocity dispersion. The black hole masses of the remaining 16 objects were estimated from the relationship between broad line region radius and optical luminosity (sub-sample 2). Then partial correlation analysis, ordinary least squares regression and K-S tests are performed on the full sample and the sub-samples, respectively. Results. We find that $σ_{\rm rms}^2 $ seems to be intrinsically correlated with the black hole mass in the full sample. However, this seems to be caused by including the sub-sample 2 into the analysis, which introduces an extra correlation between the black hole mass and the luminosity and strengthens any correlation with the black hole mass artificially. Therefore, the results from the full sample may be misleading. The results from the sub-sample 1 show that the correlation between $σ_{\rm rms}^2 $ and the X-ray luminosity may be the intrinsic one and therefore the anti-correlation between $σ_{\rm rms}^2 $ and the black hole mass is doubtful.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Observe matter falling into a black hole

It has been well known that in the point of view of a distant observer, all in-falling matter to a black hole (BH) will be eventually stalled and "frozen" just outside the event horizon of the BH, although an in-falling observer will see the matter falling straight through the event horizon. Thus in this "frozen star" scenario, as distant observers, we could never observe matter falling into a BH, neither could we see any "real" BH other than primordial ones, since all other BHs are believed to be formed by matter falling towards singularity. Here we first obtain the exact solution for a pressureless mass shell around a pre-existing BH. The metrics inside and interior to the shell are all different from the Schwarzschild metric of the enclosed mass. The metric interior to the shell can be transformed to the Schwarzschild metric for a slower clock which is dependent of the location and mass of the shell. Another result is that there does not exist a singularity nor event horizon in the shell. Therefore the "frozen star" scenario is incorrect. We also show that for all practical astrophysical settings the in-falling time recorded by an external observer is sufficiently short that future astrophysical instruments may be able to follow the whole process of matter falling into BHs. The distant observer could not distinguish between a "real" BH and a "frozen star", until two such objects merge together. It has been proposed that electromagnetic waves will be produced when two "frozen stars" merge together, but not true when two "real" bare BHs merge together. However gravitational waves will be produced in both cases. Thus our solution is testable by future high sensitivity astronomical observations.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Interacting Energy Components and Observational $H(z)$ Data

In this note, we extend our previous work [Phys. Lett. B 644, 7 (2007), astro-ph/0609597], and compare eleven interacting dark energy models with different couplings to the observational $H(z)$ data. However, none of these models is better than the simplest $Λ$CDM model. This implies that either more exotic couplings are needed in the cosmological models with interaction between dark energy and dust matter, or {\em there is no interaction at all}. We consider that this result is disadvantageous to the interacting dark energy models studied extensively in the literature.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Age Problem in the Holographic Dark Energy Model

In this note, we test the original holographic dark energy model with some old high redshift objects. The main idea is very simple: the universe cannot be younger than its constituents. We find that the original holographic dark energy model can be ruled out, unless a lower Hubble constant is taken.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Dynamics of Quintom and Hessence Energies in Loop Quantum Cosmology

In the present work, we investigate the universe dominated by quintom or hessence energies in Loop Quantum Cosmology (LQC). Interestingly enough, we find that there are some stable attractors in these two cases. In the case of quintom, all stable attractors have the feature of decelerated expansion. In the case of hessence, most of stable attractors have the feature of decelerated expansion while one stable attractor can have decelerated or accelerated expansion depend on the model parameter. In all cases, the equation-of-state parameter (EoS) of all stable attractors are larger than -1 and there is no singularity in the finite future. These results are different from the dynamics of phantom in LQC, or the ones of phantom, quintom and hessence in classical Einstein gravity.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2007

The Lorentz factor distribution and luminosity function of relativistic jets in AGNs

The observed apparent velocities and luminosities of the relativistic jets in AGNs are significantly different from their intrinsic values due to strong special relativistic effects. We adopt the maximum likelihood method to determine simultaneously the intrinsic luminosity function and the Lorentz factor distribution of a sample of AGNs. The values of the best estimated parameters are consistent with the previous results, but with much better accuracy. In previous study, it was assumed that the shape of the observed luminosity function of Fanaroff-Riley type II radio galaxies is the same with the intrinsic luminosity function of radio loud quasars. Our results prove the validity of this assumption. We also find that low and high redshift groups divided by z=0.1 are likely to be from different parent populations.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

GRO J1655-40: from ASCA and XMM-Newton Observations

We have analysed four ASCA observations (1994--1995, 1996--1997) and three XMM-Newton observations (2005) of this source, in all of which the source is in high/soft state. We modeled the continuum spectra with relativistic disk model kerrbb, estimated the spin of the central black hole, and constrained the spectral hardening factor f_col and the distance. If kerrbb model applies, for normally used value of f_col, the distance cannot be very small, and f_col changes with observations.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Reconstruction of Hessence Dark Energy and the Latest Type Ia Supernovae Gold Dataset

Recently, many efforts have been made to build dark energy models whose equation-of-state parameter can cross the so-called phantom divide $w_{de}=-1$. One of them is the so-called hessence dark energy model in which the role of dark energy is played by a non-canonical complex scalar field. In this work, we develop a simple method based on Hubble parameter $H(z)$ to reconstruct the hessence dark energy. As examples, we use two familiar parameterizations for $H(z)$ and fit them to the latest 182 type Ia supernovae Gold dataset. In the reconstruction, measurement errors are fully considered.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2007

Similar phenomena at different scales: Black Holes, the Sun, Gamma-ray Bursts, Supernovae, Galaxies and Galaxy Clusters

Many similar phenomena occur in astrophysical systems with spatial and mass scales different by many orders of magnitudes. For examples, collimated outflows are produced from the Sun, proto-stellar systems, gamma-ray bursts, neutron star and black hole X-ray binaries, and supermassive black holes; various kinds of flares occur from the Sun, stellar coronae, X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei; shocks and particle acceleration exist in supernova remnants, gamma-ray bursts, clusters of galaxies, etc. In this report I summarize briefly these phenomena and possible physical mechanisms responsible for them. I emphasize the importance of using the Sun as an astrophysical laboratory in studying these physical processes, especially the roles magnetic fields play in them; it is quite likely that magnetic activities dominate the fundamental physical processes in all of these systems. As a case study, I show that X-ray lightcurves from solar flares, black hole binaries and gamma-ray bursts exhibit a common scaling law of non-linear dynamical properties, over a dynamical range of several orders of magnitudes in intensities, implying that many basic X-ray emission nodes or elements are inter-connected over multi-scales. A future high timing and imaging resolution solar X-ray instrument, aimed at isolating and resolving the fundamental elements of solar X-ray lightcurves, may shed new lights onto the fundamental physical mechanisms, which are common in astrophysical systems with vastly different mass and spatial scales. Using the Sun as an astrophysical laboratory, "Applied Solar Astrophysics" will deepen our understanding of many important astrophysical problems.

astro-ph↗