arXiv subjects

Wei-Min Gu

Publications and source records attributed to Wei-Min Gu.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Correlations of Disk and Jet Emission Deviating from the Fundamental Plane

The variability of accretion rate, which is believed to induce the aperiodic variability of X-ray emission from disk, may affect the energy injection into the jet. In this spirit, a correlation between disk emission and jet emission can be formed even if the mean luminosity of disk emission keeps constant. In this work, these correlations are found in the situation that the luminosity of disk emission is variable and kept with a constant mean value. The obtained correlations may be shallower than that of the fundamental plane of black hole activity. In addition, the slope of correlation may increase with increasing observed frequency of jet emission. For the luminosities spacing with three days, the slope of correlation decreases with increasing black hole mass. The deviation of our found correlations from that of the fundamental plane is related to the suppression of variability in the jet emission in comparison with that in the disk emission. This mechanism may work in some sources in which shallower correlations have been reported. Moreover, it implies that luminosities used to estimate the relation of fundamental plane should cover an appropriate timescale, in which the variability of jet emission is not significantly suppressed.

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arXiv2015

Potential Gamma-ray Emissions from Low-Mass X-ray Binary Jets

By proposing a pure leptonic radiation model, we study the potential gamma-ray emissions from jets of the low-mass X-ray binaries. In this model, the relativistic electrons that are accelerated in the jets are responsible for radiative outputs. Nevertheless, dynamics of jets are dominated by the magnetic and proton-matter kinetic energies. The model involves all kinds of related radiative processes and considers the evolution of relativistic electrons along the jet by numerically solving the kinetic equation. Numerical results show that the spectral energy distributions can extend up to TeV bands, in which synchrotron radiation and synchrotron self-Compton scattering are dominant components. As an example, we apply the model to the low-mass X-ray binary GX 339-4. The results can not only reproduce the currently available observations from GX 339-4, but also predict detectable radiation at GeV and TeV bands by Fermi and CTA telescopes. The future observations with Fermi and CTA can be used to test our model, which could be employed to distinguish the origin of X-ray emissions.

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arXiv2015

Jet Luminosity of Gamma-ray Bursts: Blandford-Znajek Mechanism v.s. Neutrino Annihilation Process

A neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) around a rotating stellar-mass black hole (BH) is one of the plausible candidates for the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Two mechanisms, i.e., Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism and neutrino annihilation process, are generally considered to power GRBs. Using the analytic solutions from Xue et al. (2013) and ignoring the effects of the magnetic field configuration, we estimate the BZ and neutrino annihilation luminosities as the functions of the disk masses and BH spin parameters to contrast the observational jet luminosities of GRBs. The results show that, although the neutrino annihilation processes could account for most of GRBs, the BZ mechanism is more effective, especially for long-duration GRBs. Actually, if the energy of afterglows and flares of GRBs is included, the distinction between these two mechanisms is more significant. Furthermore, massive disk mass and high BH spin are beneficial to power high luminosities of GRBs. Finally, we discuss possible physical mechanisms to enhance the disk mass or the neutrino emission rate of NDAFs and relevant difference between these two mechanisms.

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arXiv2015

Can black-hole neutrino-cooled disks power short gamma-ray bursts?

Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) surrounded by neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) are the plausible candidates to power gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) via neutrinos emission and their annihilation. The progenitors of short-duration GRBs (SGRBs) are generally considered to be compact binaries mergers. According to the simulation results, the disk mass of the NDAF has been limited after merger events. We can estimate such disk mass by using the current SGRB observational data and fireball model. The results show that the disk mass of a certain SGRB mainly depends on its output energy, jet opening angle, and central BH characteristics. Even for the extreme BH parameters, some SGRBs require massive disks, which approach or exceed the limits in simulations. We suggest that there may exist alternative magnetohydrodynamic processes or some mechanisms increasing the neutrino emission to produce SGRBs with the reasonable BH parameters and disk mass.

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arXiv2015

Vertical convection in neutrino-dominated accretion flows

We present the effects of the vertical convection on the structure and luminosity of the neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) around a stellar-mass black hole in spherical coordinates. We found that the convective energy transfer can suppress the radial advection in the NDAF, and that the density, temperature and opening angle are slightly changed. As a result, the neutrino luminosity and annihilation luminosity are increased, which is conducive to achieve the energy requirement of gamma-ray bursts.

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arXiv2015

Limits on luminosity and mass accretion rate of a radiation pressure dominated accretion disc

There is a maximum for the gravity of a black hole in the vertical direction in the accretion disc. Outflows may probably be driven from the disc if the radiation flux of the disc is greater than a critical value corresponding to the maximal vertical gravity. We find that outflows are driven by the radiation force from the disc if the accretion rate is greater than the Eddington rate. The radiation of the disc is therefore limited by such outflows. The disc luminosity, L=L_Edd\propto ln mdot, at large-mdot cases. The Eddington ratio of the disc is ~3 for mdot~100, which is significantly lower than that of a conventional slim disc without outflows. This implies that the emission from some ultra-luminous X-ray sources with highly super Eddington luminosity should be Doppler beamed, or intermediate mass black holes are in these sources instead of stellar mass black holes. The spectra of the discs with outflows are saturated in the high frequency end provided mdot>2. We suggest that the saturated emission can be observed to estimate the masses of the black holes accreting at high rates, such as the narrow-line Seyfert galaxies, with the model calculations. The rate of the mass accreted by the black hole is always around the Eddington rate even if the mass accretion rate at the outer radius is very high, because most of the gas is removed into the outflows. This implies that the luminous quasars at high redshifts z>6 should have grown up through persistent accretion at a rate close to the Eddington rate.

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arXiv2015

Thermal Stability of Magnetized, Optically Thin, Radiative Cooling-dominated Accretion Disks

We investigate the thermal stability of optically thin, two-temperature, radiative cooling-dominated accretion disks. Our linear analysis shows that the disk is thermally unstable without magnetic fields, which agrees with previous stability analysis on the Shapiro-Lightman-Eardley disk. By taking into account the effects of magnetic fields, however, we find that the disk can be or partly be thermally stable. Our results may be helpful to understand the outflows in optically thin flows. Moreover, such radiative cooling-dominated disks may provide a new explanation of the different behaviors between black hole and neutron star X-ray binaries on the radio/X-ray correlation.

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arXiv2014

Mechanism of Outflows in Accretion System: Advective Cooling Cannot Balance Viscous Heating?

Based on no-outflow assumption, we investigate steady state, axisymmetric, optically thin accretion flows in spherical coordinates. By comparing the vertically integrated advective cooling rate with the viscous heating rate, we find that the former is generally less than 30% of the latter, which indicates that the advective cooling itself cannot balance the viscous heating. As a consequence, for radiatively inefficient flows with low accretion rates such as $\dot M \la 10^{-3} \dot M_{Edd}$, where $\dot M_{Edd}$ is the Eddington accretion rate, the viscous heating rate will be larger than the sum of the advective cooling rate and the radiative cooling one. Thus, no thermal equilibrium can be established under the no-outflow assumption. We therefore argue that in such case outflows ought to occur and take away more than 70% of the thermal energy generated by viscous dissipation. Similarly, for optically thick flows with extremely large accretion rates such as $\dot M \ga 10 \dot M_{Edd}$, outflows should also occur due to the limited advection and the low efficiency of radiative cooling. Our results may help to understand the mechanism of outflows found in observations and numerical simulations.

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arXiv2014

Self-gravity in neutrino-dominated accretion disks

We present the effects of the self-gravity on the vertical structure and neutrino luminosity of the neutrino-dominated accretion disks in cylindrical coordinates. It is found that significant changes of the structure appear in the outer region of the disk, especially for high accretion rates (e.g., $\ga 1 M_\odot~\rm s^{-1}$), and thus causes the slight increase of the neutrino luminosity. Furthermore, the gravitational instability of the disk is reviewed by the vertical distribution of the Toomre parameter \citep{Toomre1964}, which may account for the late-time flares in gamma-ray bursts and the extended emission in short-duration gamma-ray bursts.

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arXiv2014

Variability of the giant X-ray bump in GRB 121027A and possible origin

The particular giant X-ray bump of GRB 121027A triggered by \emph{Swift} is quite different from the typical X-ray flares in gamma-ray bursts. There exhibit four parts of the observed structural variabilities in the rise and decay phase of the bump. Considering the quality of four parts of the data, we can only analyze the data from about 5300 s to about 6100 s in the bump using the stepwise filter correlation method (Gao et al. 2012), and find that the $86^{+5.9}_{-9.4}~\rm s$ periodic oscillation may exist, which is confirmed by the Lomb-Scargle method (Scargle 1982). Furthermore, a jet precession model (Liu et al. 2010) is proposed to account for such a variability.

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arXiv2014

Time evolution of flares in GRB 130925A: jet precession in black hole accretion system

GRB 130925A, composed of three gamma-ray emission episodes and a series of orderly flares, has been detected by $Swift$, Fermi, Konus-$Wind$, and $INTEGRAL$. If the third weakest gamma-ray episode can be considered as a giant flare, we find that after the second gamma-ray episode observed by $INTEGRAL$ located at about 2000 s, there exists a positive relation between the time intervals of the adjacent flares and the time since the episode. We suggest that the second gamma-ray episode and its flares originate from the resumption of the accretion process due to the fragments from the collapsar falling back, such a relation may be related to a hyperaccretion disk around a precessed black hole (BH). We propose that the origin and time evolution of the flares, and the approximately symmetrical temporal structure and spectral evolution of the single flare, can be explained well by the jet precession model \citep{Liu2010}. In addition, the mass and spin of the BH can be constrained, which indicates a stellar-mass, fast rotating BH located in the center of GRB 130925A.

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arXiv2013

Revisiting the Light Curves of Gamma-ray Bursts in the Relativistic Turbulence Model

Rapid temporal variability has been widely observed in the light curves of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). One possible mechanism for such variability is related to the relativistic eddies in the jet. In this paper, we include the contribution of the inter-eddy medium together with the eddies to the gamma-ray emission. We show that the gamma-ray emission can either lead or lag behind the observed synchrotron emission, where the latter originates in the inter-eddy medium and provides most of seed photons for producing gamma-ray emission through the inverse-Compton scattering. As a consequence, we argue that the lead/lag found in non-stationary short-lived light curves may not reveal the intrinsic lead/lag of different emission components. In addition, our results may explain the lead of gamma-ray emission with respect to optical emission observed in GRB 080319B.

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arXiv2013

Do Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Exist in Globular Clusters?

The existence of intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) in globular clusters (GCs) remains a crucial problem. Searching IMBHs in GCs reveals a discrepancy between radio observations and dynamical modelings: the upper mass limits constrained by radio observations are systematically lower than that of dynamical modelings. One possibility for such a discrepancy is that, as we suggest in this work, there exist outflows in accretion flows. Our results indicate that, for most sources, current radio observations cannot rule out the possibility that IMBHs may exist in GCs. In addition, we adopt an \dot{M}-L_{R} relation to revisit this issue, which confirms the results obtained by the Fundamental Plane relation.

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arXiv2013

Neutrino-cooled Accretion Model with Magnetic Coupling for X-ray Flares in GRBs

The neutrino-cooled accretion disk, which was proposed to work as the central engine of gamma-ray bursts, encounters difficulty in interpreting the X-ray flares after the prompt gamma-ray emission. In this paper, the magnetic coupling between the inner disk and the central black hole is taken into consideration. For mass accretion rates around $0.001 \sim 0.1 M_{\sun} s^{-1}$, our results show that the luminosity of neutrino annihilation can be significantly enhanced due to the coupling effects. As a consequence, after the gamma-ray emission, a remnant disk with mass $M_{disk} \la 0.5 M_{\sun}$ may power most of the observed X-ray flares with the rest frame duration less than 100 seconds. In addition, a comparison between the magnetic coupling process and the Blandford-Znajek mechanism is shown on the extraction of black hole rotational energy.

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arXiv2013

Relativistic global solutions of neutrino-dominated accretion flows

Neutrino-dominated accretion flows (NDAFs) around rotating stellar-mass black holes are plausible candidates for the central engines of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We investigate one-dimensional global solutions of NDAFs, taking account of general relativity in Kerr metric, neutrino physics and nucleosynthesis more precisely than previous works. We calculate sixteen solutions with different characterized accretion rates and black hole spins to exhibit the radial distributions of various physical properties in NDAFs. \iffalse We find that the gas pressure and the neutrino cooling always become dominated in the inner region for large accretion rate, $\gtrsim 0.1 M_\odot$ $\rm s^{-1}$. \fi We confirm that the electron degeneracy has important effects in NDAFs and we find that the electron fraction is about 0.46 in the outer region for all the sixteen solutions. From the perspective of the mass fraction, free nucleons, $\rm ^4He$, and $\rm ^{56}Fe$ dominate in the inner, middle, and outer region, respectively. The influence of neutrino trapping on the annihilation is of importance for the superhigh accretion ($\dot M=10M_{\odot} \rm s^{-1}$) and most of the sixteen solutions have an adequate annihilation luminosity for GRBs.

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arXiv2012

The vertical composition of neutrino-dominated accretion disks in gamma-ray bursts

We investigate the vertical structure and elements distribution of neutrino-dominated accretion flows around black holes in spherical coordinates with the reasonable nuclear statistical equilibrium. According our calculations, heavy nuclei tend to be produced in a thin region near the disk surface, whose mass fractions are primarily determined by the accretion rate and the vertical distribution of temperature and density. In this thin region, we find that $^{56}\rm Ni$ is dominant for the flow with low accretion rate (e.g., $0.05 $$M_{\odot}$ $\rm s^{-1}$) but $^{56}\rm Fe$ is dominant for the high counterpart (e.g., $1 M_{\odot}$ $\rm s^{-1}$). The dominant $^{56}\rm Ni$ in the special region may provide a clue to understand the bumps in the optical light curve of core-collapse supernovae.

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arXiv2012

Understanding Simulations of Thin Accretion Disks by Energy Equation

We study the fluctuations of standard thin accretion disks by linear analysis of the time-dependent energy equation together with the vertical hydrostatic equilibrium and the equation of state. We show that some of the simulation results in Hirose et al. (2009b), such as the time delay, the relationship of power spectra, and the correlation between magnetic energy and radiation energy, can be well understood by our analytic results.

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arXiv2012

Radial Angular Momentum Transfer and Magnetic Barrier for Short-Type Gamma-Ray Burst Central Engine Activity

Soft extended emission (EE) following initial hard spikes up to 100 seconds was observed with {\em Swift}/BAT for about half of short-type gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs). This challenges the conversional central engine models of SGRBs, i.e., compact star merger models. In the framework of the black hole-neutron star merger models, we study the roles of the radial angular momentum transfer in the disk and the magnetic barrier around the black hole for the activity of SGRB central engines. We show that the radial angular momentum transfer may significantly prolong the lifetime of the accretion process and multiple episodes may be switched by the magnetic barrier. Our numerical calculations based on the models of the neutrino-dominated accretion flows suggest that the disk mass is critical for producing the observed EE. In case of the mass being $\sim 0.8M_{\odot}$, our model can reproduce the observed timescale and luminosity of both the main and EE episodes in a reasonable parameter set. The predicted luminosity of the EE component is lower than the observed EE with about one order of magnitude and the timescale is shorter than 20 seconds if the disk mass being $\sim 0.2M_{\odot}$. {\em Swift}/BAT-like instruments may be not sensitive enough to detect the EE component in this case. We argue that the EE component would be a probe for merger process and disk formation for compact star mergers.

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