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Wen Zhao

Publications and source records attributed to Wen Zhao.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

Constraining Screened Modified Gravity by Space-borne Gravitational-wave Detectors

The screened modified gravity (SMG) is a unified theoretical framework, which describes the scalar-tensor gravity with screening mechanism. Based on the gravitational-wave (GW) waveform derived in our previous work \citep{liu2018waveforms}, in this article we investigate the potential constraints on SMG theory through the GW observation of the future space-borne GW detectors, including LISA, TianQin and Taiji. We find that, for the EMRIs consisting of a massive black hole and a neutron star, if the EMRIs are at Virgo cluster, the GW signals can be detected by the detectors at quite high significant level, and the screened parameter $ε_{\rm NS}$ can be constrained at about $\mathcal{O}(10^{-5})$, which is more than one order of magnitude tighter than the potential constraint given by ground-based Einstein telescope. However, for the EMRIs consisting of a massive black hole and a white dwarf, it is more difficult to be detected than the previous case. For the specific SMG models, including chameleon, symmetron and dilaton, we find these constraints are complementary with that from Cassini experiment, but weaker than those from lunar laser ranging observations and binary pulsars, due to the strong gravitational potentials on the surface of neutron stars. By analyzing the deviation of GW waveform in SMG from that in general relativity, as anticipated, we find the dominant contribution of the SMG constraining comes from the correction terms in the GW phases, rather than the extra polarization modes or the correction terms in the GW amplitudes.

gr-qc↗

Polarized primordial gravitational waves in the ghost-free parity-violating gravity

The tests of parity symmetry in the gravitational interaction is an attractive issue in the gravitational-wave astronomy. In the general theories of gravity with parity violation, one of the fundamental results is that the primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) produced during the slow-roll inflation is circularly polarized. In this article, we investigate the polarization of PGWs in the recently proposed ghost-free parity-violating gravity, which generalizes the Chern-Simons gravity by including the higher derivatives of the coupling scalar field. For this purpose, we first construct the approximate analytical solution to the mode function of the PGWs during the slow-roll inflation by using the uniform asymptotic approximation. With the approximate solution, we calculate explicitly the power spectrum and the corresponding circular polarization of the PGWs analytically, and find that the contributions of the higher derivatives of the coupling scalar field to the circular polarization is of the same order of magnitude as that of Chern-Simons gravity. The degree of circular polarization of PGWs is suppressed by the energy scale of parity violation in gravity, which is hardly detected on the basis solely of two-point statistics from future cosmic microwave background data.

astro-ph.CO↗

Collaborative representation-based robust face recognition by discriminative low-rank representation

We consider the problem of robust face recognition in which both the training and test samples might be corrupted because of disguise and occlusion. Performance of conventional subspace learning methods and recently proposed sparse representation based classification (SRC) might be degraded when corrupted training samples are provided. In addition, sparsity based approaches are time-consuming due to the sparsity constraint. To alleviate the aforementioned problems to some extent, in this paper, we propose a discriminative low-rank representation method for collaborative representation-based (DLRR-CR) robust face recognition. DLRR-CR not only obtains a clean dictionary, it further forces the sub-dictionaries for distinct classes to be as independent as possible by introducing a structural incoherence regularization term. Simultaneously, a low-rank projection matrix can be learned to remove the possible corruptions in the testing samples. Collaborative representation based classification (CRC) method is exploited in our proposed method which has closed-form solution. Experimental results obtained on public face databases verify the effectiveness and robustness of our method.

cs.CV↗

Waveform of gravitational waves in the ghost-free parity-violating gravities

Gravitational waves (GWs) provide an excellent opportunity to test the gravity in the strong gravitational fields. In this article, we calculate the waveform of GWs, produced by the coalescence of compact binaries, in an extension of the Chern-Simons gravity by including higher derivatives of the coupling scalar field. By comparing the two circular polarization modes, we find the effects of amplitude birefringence and velocity birefringence of GWs in their propagation caused by the parity violation in gravity, which are explicitly presented in the GW waveforms by the amplitude and phase modifications respectively. Combining the two modes, we obtain the GW waveforms in the Fourier domain, and find that the deviations from those in General Relativity are dominated by effects of velocity birefringence of GWs. In addition, we also map the effects of the parity violation on the waveform onto the parameterized post-Einsteinian (PPE) framework and identify explicitly the PPE parameters.

gr-qc↗

Waveform of gravitational waves in the general parity-violating gravities

As an extension of our previous work [J.Qiao, T.Zhu, W.Zhao & A.Wang, arXiv:1909.03815], in this article, we calculate the effects of parity violation on gravitational-wave (GW) waveforms during their propagation in the most general parity-violating gravities, including Chern-Simons modified gravity, ghost-free scalar-tensor gravity, symmetric teleparallel equivalence of GR theory, Hořava-Lifshitz gravity and so on. For this purpose, we consider the GWs generated by the coalescence of compact binaries and concentrate on the imprints of the parity violation in the propagation of GWs. With a unified description of GW in the theories of parity-violating gravity, we study the effects of velocity and amplitude birefringence on the GW waveforms. Decomposing the GWs into the circular polarization modes, the two birefringence effects exactly correspond to the modifications in phase and amplitude of GW waveforms respectively. We find that, for each circular polarization mode, the amplitude, phase and velocity of GW can be modified by both the parity-violating terms and parity-conserving terms in gravity. Therefore, in order to test the parity symmetry in gravity, we should compare the difference between two circular polarization modes, rather than measuring an individual mode. Combining two circular modes, we obtain the GW waveforms in the Fourier domain, and obtain the deviations from those in General Relativity. The GW waveforms derived in this paper are also applicable to the theories of parity-conserving gravity, which have the modified dispersion relations (e.g. massive gravity, double special relativity theory, extra-dimensional theories, etc), or/and have the modified friction terms (e.g. nonlocal gravity, gravitational theory with time-dependent Planck mass, etc).

gr-qc↗

On using inspiralling supermassive binary black holes in the PTA frequency band as standard sirens to constrain dark energy

Supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) in galactic centers may radiate gravitational wave (GW) in the nano-Hertz frequency band, which are expected to be detected by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) in the near future. GW signals from individual SMBBHs at cosmic distances, if detected by PTAs, are potentially powerful standard sirens that can be used to independently measure distances and thus put constraints on cosmological parameters. In this paper, we investigate the constraint that may be obtained on the equation of state ($w$) of dark energy by using those SMBBHs, expected to be detected by the PTAs in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) era. By considering both the currently available SMBBH candidates and mock SMBBHs in the universe resulting from a simple galaxy major merger model, we find that $\sim 200$ to $3000$ SMBBHs with chirp mass $>10^9M_\odot$ are expected to be detected with signal-to-noise ratio $>10$ by SKA-PTA with conservative and optimistic settings and they can be used to put a constraint on $w$ to an uncertainty of $Δw\sim 0.02-0.1$. If further information on the mass and mass ratio of those SMBBHs can be provided by electromagnetic observations (e.g., chirp mass uncertainty $\lesssim 50\%$), the constraint may be further improved to $\lesssim 0.01$ level, as many more SMBBHs will be detected by SKA-PTA with relatively better distance measurements and can be used as the standard sirens.

astro-ph.GA↗

Model-independent measurement of the absolute magnitude of Type Ia Supernovae with gravitational-wave sources

The similarity of the absolute luminosity profiles of Type Ia supernovae (SNIe), as one kind of distance indicator, has led their use in extragalactic astronomy as secondary standard candles. In general, the empirical relationship of SNIa on the absolute peak magnitude $M_{\rm B}$ is calibrated by Cepheid variables in the near distance scale and directly extrapolated to much farther distances. Two main problems arise. First, their calibration, in particular the determination of $M_{\rm B}$, depends on the empirical relationship of Cepheid variables, which suffers from various uncertainties. The second is related to the homogeneity of SNIa in their true $M_{\rm B}$, which is known to be poor in different environments. The observed GW signal of the coalescence of compact binary systems and their electromagnetic counterparts provide the novel and model-independent way to address these two problems. In the era of second-generation GW detectors, the low-redshift GW sources provide a novel method to calibrate the empirical relationship of SNIa, using their self-calibrated distances. Here, we use the event GW170817 to calibrate the empirical relationship in different low redshift ranges, and find that the calibration results are consistent with the ones derived from the Cepheid variables. Moreover, the uncertainties of $M_{\rm B}$ in both methods are also comparable. By the observations of third-generation GW detectors, GW sources can also be used to measure the values of $M_{\rm B}$ for the high-redshift SNIe, which provides a unique opportunity to study the dependence of $M_{\rm B}$ on the local environment, strength of gravity, and the intrinsic properties of the explosion, in addition to test the homogeneity of standard candles. We find that the uncertainties of $M_{\rm B}$ in both high and low redshifts are more than one order of magnitude smaller than the current accuracy.

astro-ph.HE↗

Gravitational waveforms and radiation powers of the triple system PSR J0337+1715 in modified theories of gravity

In this paper, we study the gravitational waveforms, polarizations and radiation powers of the first relativistic triple systems PSR J0337 + 1715, observed in 2014, by using the post-Newtonian approximations to their lowest order. Although they cannot be observed either by current or next generation of the detectors, they do provide useful information to test different theories of gravity. In particular, we carry out the studies in three different theories, general relativity (GR), Brans-Dicke (BD) gravity, and Einstein-aether ($æ$) theory. The tensor modes $h_{+}$ and $h_{\times}$ exist in all three theories and have almost equal amplitudes. Their frequencies are all peaked at two locations, $ f^{(+, \times)}_1 \simeq 0.0686656 μ$Hz and $ f^{(+, \times)}_2 \simeq 14.2138 μ$Hz, which are about twice of the outer and inner orbital frequencies of the triple system, as predicted in GR. In $æ$-theory, all the six polarization modes are different from zero, but the breathing $h_b$ and longitudinal $h_L$ modes are not independent and also peaked at two frequencies, but at the frequencies, $ f^{(b, L, æ)}_{1} \simeq 0.0457771 μ$Hz and $f^{(b, L, æ)}_{ 2} \simeq 7.09545 μ$Hz. A similar phenomenon is also observed in BD gravity, in which only the three modes $h_{+},\; h_{\times}$ and $h_{b}$ exit. We also study the radiation powers, and find that the quadrupole emission in each of the three theories has almost the same amplitude, but the dipole emission can be as big as the quadrupole emission in $æ$-theory. This can provide a very promising window to obtain severe constraints on $æ$-theory by the multi-band gravitational wave astronomy.

astro-ph.HE↗

Weak-force sensing with squeezed optomechanics

We investigate quantum-squeezing-enhanced weak-force sensing via a nonlinear optomechanical resonator containing a movable mechanical mirror and an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). Herein, we determined that tuning the OPA parameters can considerably suppress quantum noise and substantially enhance force sensitivity, enabling the device to extensively surpass the standard quantum limit. This indicates that under realistic experimental conditions, we can achieve ultrahigh-precision quantum force sensing by harnessing nonlinear optomechanical devices.

quant-ph↗

Constraining the scalar-tensor gravity theories with and without screening mechanisms by combined observations

Screened modified gravity (SMG) and Brans-Dicke (BD) gravity are typical examples of scalar-tensor theories with and without screening mechanisms, which can suppress the scalar field in dense regions. In this paper, we investigate the tests of time-varying gravitational constant $G$, gravitational dipole radiation, and Nordtvedt effect in BD and SMG theories, respectively. We place new constraints on these theories by combining Cassini experiment, lunar laser ranging (LLR) measurements, and pulsar observations from PSRs J1738$+$0333 and J0348$+$0432. We find that screening mechanism has important influence on theoretical constraints. The strongest, second, and weakest constraints on BD are from Cassini, pulsar, and LLR tests, respectively. The most stringent constraint on SMG comes from LLR measurements and improves the previous best constraint by more than seven orders of magnitude. We derive the bounds on the cosmological evolution of the scalar background in these theories using the time variation of $G$. The results of all tests agree well with general relativity (GR) and give more stringent constraints on the deviations from GR. Finally, as an example, we consider the chameleon model and derive the constraints on the model parameters.

gr-qc↗

Constraining the non-Einsteinian polarizations of gravitational waves by pulsar timing array

Pulsar timing array (PTA) provides an excellent opportunity to detect the gravitational waves (GWs) in nanoHertz frequency band. In particular, due to the larger number of "arms" in PTA, it can be used to test gravity by probing the non-Einsteinian polarization modes of GWs, including two spin-1 shear modes labeled by "$sn$" and "$se$", the spin-0 transverse mode labeled by "$b$" and the longitudinal mode labeled by "$l$". In this paper, we investigate the capabilities of the current and potential future PTAs, which are quantified by the constraints on the amplitudes parameters $(c_b,c_{sn},c_{se},c_{l})$, by observing an individual supermassive black hole binary in Virgo cluster. We find that for binary with chirp mass $M_{c}=8.77 \times 10^{8} \mathrm{M_{\odot}}$ and GW frequency $f=10^{-9}\mathrm{Hz}$, the PTA at current level can detect these GW modes if $c_b > 0.00106$, $c_l > 0.00217$, $c_{se} > 0.00271$, $c_{sn} > 0.00141$, which will be improved by about two orders if considering the potential PTA in SKA era. Interesting enough, due to effects of the geometrical factors, we find that in SKA era, the constraints on the $l$, $sn$, $se$ modes of GWs are purely dominated by several pulsars, instead of the full pulsars in PTA.

gr-qc↗

Gravitational wave forms, polarizations, response functions and energy losses of triple systems in Einstein-Aether theory

Gravitationally bound hierarchies containing three or more components are very common in our Universe. In this paper we study {\em periodic} gravitational wave (GW) form, their polarizations, response function, its Fourier transform, and energy loss rate of a triple system through three different channels of radiation, the scalar, vector and tensor modes, in Einstein-aether theory of gravity. In the weak-field approximations and with the recently obtained constraints of the theory, we first analyze the energy loss rate of a binary system, and find that the dipole contributions from the scalar and vector modes could be of the order of ${\cal{O}}\left(c_{14}\right){\cal{O}}\left(G_Nm/d\right)^2$, where $c_{14} \; (\equiv c_{1} + c_{4})$ is constrained to $c_{14} \lesssim {\cal{O}}\left(10^{-5}\right)$ by current observations, where $c_i$'s are the four coupling constants of the theory. On the other hand, the "strong-field" effects for a binary system of neutron stars are about six orders lower than that of GR. So, in this paper we ignore these "strong-field" effects and first develop the general formulas to the lowest post-Newtonian order, by taking the coupling of the aether field with matter into account. Within this approximation, we find that the scalar breather mode and the scalar longitudinal mode are all suppressed by a factor of ${\cal{O}}\left(c_{14}\right)$ with respect to the transverse-traceless modes ($h_{+}$ and $h_{\times}$), while the vectorial modes $(h_{X}$ and $h_{Y}$) are suppressed by a factor of $c_{13} \lesssim {\cal{O}}\left(10^{-15}\right)$. Applying the general formulas to a triple system with periodic orbits, we find that the corresponding GW form, response function, and its Fourier transform depend sensitively on both the configuration of the triple system and their orientations with respect to the detectors.

astro-ph.GA↗

Angular momentum loss for eccentric compact binary in screened modified gravity

Gravitational wave (GW) observations provide insight into the gravity regime. These observations relies on the comparison of the data to the GWs model, which depends on the orbital evolution of the binary systems. In this paper, we study the orbital evolution of eccentric compact binaries within screened modified gravity, which is a kind of scalar-tensor theory with screening mechanisms. According to the Noether's theorem, from the theory's GW action, we compute the angular momentum flux both as a function of the fields in the theory and as a function of the multipole moments of a N-body system. We specialize to the orbital parameters of eccentric compact binaries to express its orbital energy and angular momentum decay, and then derive the decay rates of its orbital eccentricity and semimajor axis. We find that these quantities decay faster than in General Relativity due to the presence of dipole radiation.

gr-qc↗

Constraining the time variation of Newton's constant $G$ with gravitational-wave standard sirens and supernovae

The intrinsic peak luminosity of Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) depends on the value of Newton's gravitational constant $G$, through the Chandrasekhar mass $M_{\rm Ch}\propto G^{-3/2}$. If the luminosity distance can be independently determined, the SNIa can be treated as a tracker to constrain the possible time variation of $G$ in different redshift ranges. The gravitational-wave (GW) standard sirens, caused by the coalescence of binary neutron stars, provide a model-independent way to measure the distance of GW events, which can be used to determine the luminosity distances of SNIa by interpolation, provided the GW and SNIa samples have similar redshift ranges. We demonstrate that combining the GW observations of third-generation detectors with SNIa data provides a powerful and model-independent way to measure $G$ in a wide redshift range, which can constrain the ratio $G/G_0$, where $G$ and $G_0$ are respectively the values in the redshift ranges $z>0.1$ and $z<0.1$, at the level of $1.5\%$.

astro-ph.CO↗

Waveforms of compact binary inspiral gravitational radiation in screened modified gravity

Scalar-tensor gravity, with the screening mechanisms to avoid the severe constraints of the fifth force in the Solar System, can be described with a unified theoretical framework, the so-called screened modified gravity (SMG). Within this framework, in this paper we calculate the waveforms of gravitational-waves (GWs) emitted by inspiral compact binaries, which include four polarization modes, the plus $h_{+}$, cross $h_{\times}$, breathing $h_{b}$, and longitudinal $h_{L}$ modes. The scalar polarizations $h_b$ and $h_L$ are both caused by the scalar field of SMG, and satisfy a simple linear relation. With the stationary phase approximations, we obtain their Fourier transforms, and derive the correction terms in the amplitude, phase, and polarizations of GWs, relative to the corresponding results in general relativity. The corresponding parametrized post-Einsteinian parameters in the general SMG are also identified. Imposing the noise level of the ground-based Einstein Telescope, we find that GW detections from inspiral compact binaries composed of a neutron star and a black hole can place stringent constraints on the sensitivities of neutron stars, and the bound is applicable to any SMG theory. Finally, we apply these results to some specific theories of SMG, including chameleon, symmetron, dilaton and $f(R)$.

gr-qc↗

Evidence of deviations from general relativity in binary pulsars?

Testing gravitational theories by binary pulsars nowadays becomes a key issue. For the general screened modified gravity (SMG), the post-Keplerian parameters in the neutron star (NS) - white dwarf (WD) binaries differ from those of general relativity (GR), and the differences are quantified by the scalar charge $ε_{\scriptscriptstyle\rm WD}$ of WD. After deriving the constraints on $ε_{\scriptscriptstyle\rm WD}$ from four different NS-WD binaries, we find that $ε_{\scriptscriptstyle\rm WD}$ is different from zero at the 2$σ$ level in all the cases studied, and there exists an inverse correlation between masses and scalar charges of low-mass WDs, which is consistent with the screening mechanisms. In particular, two independent binaries with measured radii of WDs follow the coincident constraints on the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field. These self-consistent results indicate that the observations in NS-WD binary pulsars seem in favor of SMG, rather than GR.

gr-qc↗

Localization accuracy of compact binary coalescences detected by the third-generation gravitational-wave detectors and implication for cosmology

We use the Fisher information matrix to investigate the angular resolution and luminosity distance uncertainty for coalescing binary neutron stars (BNSs) and neutron star-black hole binaries (NSBHs) detected by the third-generation (3G) gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Our study focuses on an individual 3G detector and a network of up to four 3G detectors at different locations including the US, Europe, China and Australia for the proposed Einstein Telescope (ET) and Cosmic Explorer (CE) detectors. We in particular examine the effect of the Earth's rotation, as GW signals from BNS and low mass NSBH systems could be hours long for 3G detectors. We find that, a time-dependent antenna beam-pattern function can help better localize BNS and NSBH sources, especially those edge-on ones. The medium angular resolution for one ET-D detector is around 150 deg$^2$ for BNSs at a redshift of $z=0.1$. The medium angular resolution for a network of two CE detectors in the US and Europe respectively is around 20 deg$^2$ at $z=0.2$ for the simulated BNS and NSBH samples. While for a network of two ET-D detectors, the similar angular resolution can be achieved at a much higher redshift of $z=0.5$. The angular resolution of a network of three detectors is mainly determined by the baselines between detectors regardless of the CE or ET detector type. We discuss the implications of our results to constrain the Hubble constant $H_0$, the deceleration parameter $q_0$ and the equation-of-state (EoS) of dark energy. We find that in general, if 10 BNSs or NSBHs at $z=0.1$ with known redshifts are detected, $H_0$ can be measured with an accuracy of $0.9\%$. If 1000 face-on BNSs at $z<2$ are detected with known redshifts, we are able to achieve $Δq_0=0.002$, or $Δw_0=0.03$ and $Δw_a=0.2$ for dark energy.(Abridged version).

astro-ph.CO↗

Vapor-Liquid-Solid Growth of Monolayer MoS2 Nanoribbons

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of two-dimensional (2D) materials such as monolayer MoS2 typically involves the conversion of vapor-phase precursors to a solid product in a process that may be described as a vapor-solid-solid (VSS) mode. Here, we report the first demonstration of vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) growth of monolayer MoS2 yielding highly crystalline ribbon-shaped structures with a width of a few tens of nanometers to a few micrometers. The VLS growth mode is triggered by the reaction between molybdenum oxide and sodium chloride, which results in the formation of molten Na-Mo-O droplets. These droplets mediate the growth of MoS2 ribbons in the "crawling mode" when saturated with sulfur on a crystalline substrate. Our growth yields straight and kinked ribbons with a locally well-defined orientation, reflecting the regular horizontal motion of the liquid droplets during growth. Using atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy, we show that the ribbons are homoepitaxially on monolayer MoS2 surface with predominantly 2H- or 3R-type stacking. These findings pave the way to novel devices with structures of mixed dimensionalities.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗