arXiv subjects

X. L. Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to X. L. Zhang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Spectral Energy Correlations of Gamma-Ray Bursts from Structured Jets

Using 148 out-axis gamma-ray bursts, we build their spectrum-energy relations of peak energy versus isotropic energy, peak energy versus peak luminosity and peak energy versus jet-calibrated energy which are corrected for a structured jet model. These relations are found to depend on the observer's viewing angle as long as the observer is within the jet cone. After converting the out-axis energy relations to the in-axis situations, we find that the corresponding in-axis energy relations are universally steeper, of which all of them can be roughly interpreted by the Synchrotron radiation mechanism as shown in Xu et al.. Meanwhile, we notice that the in-axis means of isotropic energies are about one order of magnitude larger than the out-axis means for both short and long bursts except the Supernova-associated gamma-ray bursts. Furthermore, we apply all the newly-found energy relations to construct the Hubble diagrams of out/in-axis bursts. It is found that the in-axis Hubble diagrams are better cosmological indicators.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

A Comparative Study of Luminosity Functions and Event Rate Densities of Long GRBs with Non-parametric Method

In this work, we restudy the dependence of luminosity function and event rates for different gamma-ray burst samples on the criteria of sample selection and threshold effect. To compare with many previous studies, we have chosen two samples including 88 and 118 long bursts with known redshift and peak flux over 2.6 ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, from which 79 bursts are picked out to constitute our complete sample. It is found that the evolution of luminosity with redshift can be expressed by $L\propto(1+z)^k$ with a diverse $k$ relied more on the sample selection. Interestingly, the cumulative distributions of either non-evolving luminosities or redshifts are found to be also determined by the sample selection rather than the instrumental sensitivity. Nevertheless, the non-evolving luminosities of our samples are similarly distributed with a comparable break luminosity of $L_0\sim10^{51}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Importantly, we verify with a K-S test that three cases of event rates for the two burst samples evolve with redshift similarly except a small discrepancy due to sampling differences at low-redshift of $z<1$, in which all event rates show an excess of Gaussian profile instead of monotonous decline no matter whether the sample is complete. Most importantly, it is found that the burst rates violate the star formation rate at low redshift, while both of them are good in agreement with each other in the higher-redshift regions as many authors discovered previously. Therefore, we predict that two types of long bursts are favored in terms of their associations with both the star formation and the cosmic metallicity.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

GECAM detection of a bright type-I X-ray burst from 4U 0614+09: confirmation its spin frequency at 413 Hz

One month after launching Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM), a bright thermonuclear X-ray burst from 4U~0614+09, was observed on January 24, 2021. We report the time-resolved spectroscopy of the burst and a burst oscillation detection at 413 Hz with a fractional amplitude 3.4\% (rms). This coincides with the burst oscillation previously discovered with \textit{Swift}/BAT \citep{Strohmayer2008}, and therefore confirms the spin frequency of this source. This burst is the brightest one in the normal bursts (except the superburst) ever detected from 4U~0614+09, which leads to an upper limit of distance estimation as 3.1 kpc. The folded light curve during the burst oscillation shows a multi-peak structure, which is the first case observed during a single burst oscillation in nonpulsating sources. The multi-peak profile could be due to additional harmonics of the burst oscillation, which is corresponding to several brighter/fainter spots at the stellar surface.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Temporal Properties of Precursors, Main peaks and Extended Emissions of Short GRBs in the Third Swift/BAT GRB Catalog

A comprehensive study is given to short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) in the third Swift/BAT GRB Catalog from December 2004 to July 2019. We examine in details the temporal properties of the three components in the prompt gamma-ray emission phase, including precursors, main peaks and extended emissions (EE). We investigate the similarity of the main peaks between one-component and two-component sGRBs. It is found that there is no substantial difference among their main peaks. Importantly, comparisons are made between in the single-peaked sGRBs and the double-peaked sGRBs. It is found that our results of main peaks in Swift/BAT sGRBs are essentially consistent with those in CGRO/BATSE ones recently found in our paper I. Interestingly, we suspect, besides the newly-found MODE I/II evolution forms of pulses in BATSE sGRBs in paper I, that there would have more evolution modes of pulses across differently adjacent energy channels in view of the Swift/BAT observations. We further inspect the correlation of the main peaks with either the precursors or the EEs. We find that the main peaks tend to last longer than the precursors but shorter than the EEs. In particular, we verify the power-law correlations related with peak fluxes of the three components, strongly suggesting that they are produced from the similar central engine activities. Especially, we compare the temporal properties of GRB 170817A with other sGRBs with EE and find no obvious differences between them.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Gamma-Ray Bursts with Extended Emission: Classifications, Energy Correlations and Radiation Properties

Thanks to more and more gamma-ray bursts with measured redshift and extended emission detected by the recent space telescopes, it is urgent and possible to check whether those previous energy correlations still satisfy for the particular sample involving only the bursts accompanied by tail radiations. Using 20 long and 22 short bursts with extended emission, we find that the popular $γ$-ray energy correlations of the intrinsic peak energy versus the isotropic energy (Amati relation) and the intrinsic peak energy versus the peak luminosity (Yonetoku relation) do exist in either short or long bursts. However, these gamma-ray bursts with extended emissions are much better to be reclassified into two subgroups of E-I and E-II that make the above energy correlations more tight. As proposed by Zhang et al. (2018), the energy correlations can be utilized to distinguish these kinds of gamma-ray bursts in the plane of bolometric fluence versus peak energy as well. Interestingly, the peculiar short GRB 170817A belongs to the E-I group in the fluence versus peak energy plane, but it is an outlier of both Amati and Yonetoku relations even though the off-axis effect has been corrected. Furthermore, we compare the radiation features between the extended emissions and the prompt gamma-rays in order to search for their possible connections. Taking into account all these factors, we conclude that gamma-ray bursts with extended emission are still required to model with dichotomic groups, namely E-I and E-II classes, respectively, which hints that they might be of different origins.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Spectroscopic Monitoring of Blazar S5 0716+714: Brightness-Dependent Spectral Behavior

In this paper, we report the new results of spectroscopic observations of $γ$-ray blazar S5 0716+714 from 2019 September to 2020 March with the 2.4 m optical telescope at Lijiang Observatory of Yunnan Observatories. The median cadence of observations is $\sim$ 1 day. During the second observation period (Epoch2), the observational data reveal an extremely bright state and a bluer-when-brighter (BWB) chromatism. The BWB trend of Epoch2 differs significantly from that of the first observation period (Epoch1). A significantly brightness-dependent BWB chromatism emerges in the total data of Epoch1 and Epoch2. The BWB trend becomes weaker towards the brighter states, and likely becomes saturated at the highest state. Based on a log-parabolic function, a power-law of synchrotron peak flux and frequency $ν_{\rm{p}}$, and a power-law of the curvature of synchrotron spectrum and its $ν_{\rm{p}}$, simulation well reproduces the brightness-dependent BWB trend of S5 0716+714. The BWB trend is seemingly controlled by the shift of $ν_{\rm{p}}$ with respect to the observational window, and effectively may be dominated by the variations of electron average energy and magnetic field in emitting region.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Gamma-ray Emission of 60Fe and 26Al Radioactivities in our Galaxy

The isotopes $^{60}$Fe and $^{26}$Al originate from massive stars and their supernovae, reflecting ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Galaxy. We studied the gamma-ray emission from these isotopes at characteristic energies 1173, 1332, and 1809 keV with over 15 years of SPI data, finding a line flux in $^{60}$Fe combined lines of $(0.31\pm 0.06) \times 10^{-3}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ and the $^{26}$Al line flux of $(16.8\pm 0.7) \times 10^{-4}$ ph cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ above the background and continuum emission for the whole sky. Based on the exponential-disk grid maps, we characterise the emission extent of $^{26}$Al to find scale parameters $R_0 =7.0^{+1.5}_{-1.0}$ kpc and $z_0=0.8^{+0.3}_{-0.2}$ kpc, however the $^{60}$Fe lines are too weak to spatially constrain the emission. Based on a point source model test across the Galactic plane, the $^{60}$Fe emission would not be consistent with a single strong point source in the Galactic center or somewhere else, providing a hint for a diffuse nature. We carried out comparisons of emission morphology maps using different candidate-source tracers for both $^{26}$Al and $^{60}$Fe emissions, and suggests that the $^{60}$Fe emission is more likely to be concentrated towards the Galactic plane. We determine the $^{60}$Fe/$^{26}$Al $γ$-ray flux ratio at $(18.4\pm4.2)\,\%$ , when using a parameterized spatial morphology model. Across the range of plausible morphologies, it appears possible that $^{26}$Al and $^{60}$Fe are distributed differently in the Galaxy. Using the best fitting maps for each of the elements, we constrain flux ratios in the range 0.2--0.4. We discuss its implications for massive star models and their nucleosynthesis.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Distributed Data-Processing Pipeline for Mingantu Ultrawide Spectral Radioheliograph

The Chinese Spectral RadioHeliograph (CSRH) is a synthetic aperture radio interferometer built in Inner Mongolia, China. As a solar-dedicated interferometric array, CSRH is capable of producing high quality radio images at frequency range from 400 MHz to 15 GHz with high temporal, spatial, and spectral resolution.To implement high cadence imaging at wide-band and obtain more than 2 order higher multiple frequencies, the implementation of the data processing system for CSRH is a great challenge. It is urgent to build a pipeline for processing massive data of CSRH generated every day. In this paper, we develop a high performance distributed data processing pipeline (DDPP) built on the OpenCluster infrastructure for processing CSRH observational data including data storage, archiving, preprocessing, image reconstruction, deconvolution, and real-time monitoring. We comprehensively elaborate the system architecture of the pipeline and the implementation of each subsystem. The DDPP is automatic, robust, scalable and manageable. The processing performance under multi computers parallel and GPU hybrid system meets the requirements of CSRH data processing. The study presents an valuable reference for other radio telescopes especially aperture synthesis telescopes, and also gives an valuable contribution to the current and/or future data intensive astronomical observations.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Analysis of a controlled phase gate using circular Rydberg states

We propose and analyze the implementation of a two qubit quantum gate using circular Rydberg states with maximum orbital angular momentum. The intrinsic quantum gate error is limited by the finite Rydberg lifetime and finite Rydberg blockade shift. Circular states have much longer radiative lifetimes than low orbital angular momentum states and are therefore candidates for high fidelity gate operations. We analyze the dipole-dipole interaction of two circular state Rydberg atoms and present numerical simulations of quantum process tomography to find the intrinsic fidelity of a Rydberg blockade controlled phase gate. Our analysis shows that the intrinsic gate error can be less than $9 \times10^{-6}$ for circular Cs atoms in a cryogenic environment.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2012

Operations of the Tevatron Electron Lenses

The two Tevatron Electron Lenses (TEL1 and TEL2) are installed in Tevatron in 2001 and 2006 respectively. TEL1 is operated as the vital parts of the Tevatron for abort gap beam clearing, while TEL2 is functioning as the backup as well as the test device for beam-beam compensation, space charge compensator and soft beam collimator. Both of them are working exceptionally reliable after a few initial kinks being worked out. Their operations in Tevatron are summarized in this report.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2012

Fidelity of a Rydberg blockade quantum gate from simulated quantum process tomography

We present a detailed error analysis of a Rydberg blockade mediated controlled-NOT quantum gate between two neutral atoms as demonstrated recently in Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 010503 (2010) and Phys. Rev. A 82, 030306 (2010). Numerical solutions of a master equation for the gate dynamics, including all known sources of technical error, are shown to be in good agreement with experiments. The primary sources of gate error are identified and suggestions given for future improvements. We also present numerical simulations of quantum process tomography to find the intrinsic fidelity, neglecting technical errors, of a Rydberg blockade controlled phase gate. The gate fidelity is characterized using trace overlap and trace distance measures. We show that the trace distance is linearly sensitive to errors arising from the finite Rydberg blockade shift and introduce a modified pulse sequence which corrects the linear errors. Our analysis shows that the intrinsic gate error extracted from simulated quantum process tomography can be under 0.002 for specific states of $^{87}$Rb or Cs atoms. The relation between the process fidelity and the gate error probability used in calculations of fault tolerance thresholds is discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2010

Deterministic entanglement of two neutral atoms via Rydberg blockade

We demonstrate the first deterministic entanglement of two individually addressed neutral atoms using a Rydberg blockade mediated controlled-NOT gate. Parity oscillation measurements reveal an entanglement fidelity of $F=0.58\pm0.04$, which is above the entanglement threshold of $F=0.5$, without any correction for atom loss, and $F=0.71\pm0.05$ after correcting for background collisional losses. The fidelity results are shown to be in good agreement with a detailed error model.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Demonstration of a neutral atom controlled-NOT quantum gate

We present the first demonstration of a CNOT gate using neutral atoms. Our implementation of the CNOT uses Rydberg blockade interactions between neutral atoms held in optical traps separated by >8 μ\rm m. We measure CNOT fidelities of F=0.73 and 0.72 using two different gate protocols, and show by measurement of parity oscillations that the gate can be used to generate two-atom states with fidelity at the threshold for entanglement. We anticipate that the long range nature of the Rydberg interaction will be attractive for future extensions of this work to multi-qubit systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Spectral and intensity variations of Galactic 26^Al emission

Gamma-ray line emission from the radioactive decay of 26Al reflects nucleosynthesis in massive stars and supernovae. We use INTEGRAL 26Al measurements to characterize the distribution and characteristics of 26Al source regions throughout the Galaxy. We detect the 26Al line from the inner Galaxy at 28σsignificance. The line appears narrow, and we constrain broadening in the source regions to <1.3 keV (2σ). Different sky distribution models do not significantly affect those large-scale results. The 26Al intensity for the inner Galaxy is derived as (2.9\pm 0.2)\times 10^{-4}ph\ cm^{-2} s^{-1} rad^{-1}, consistent with earlier results from COMPTEL and SPI data. This can be translated to an 26Al mass of 2.7\pm 0.7 solar mass in the Galaxy as a whole. The 26Al intensity is also confirmed to be somewhat brighter in the 4th than in the 1st quadrant (ratio 1.3\pm 0.2). 26Al spectra separately derived for regions along the Galactic plane show clear line centroid shifts, attributed largely to the Galaxy's large-scale rotation. The 26Al line toward the direction of the Aquila region (20deg < l < 40deg) appears somewhat broadened. Latitudinal variations of 26Al emission towards the inner Galaxy are studied, finding a latitudinal scale height of 130^{+120}_{-70} pc (1σ) for 26Al in the inner Galaxy and a hint of peculiar 26Al emission towards the region l<0deg, b>5deg.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2008

Bell-state preparation for fullerene based electron spins in distant peapod nanotubes

We propose a potentially practical scheme, in combination with the Bell-state analyzer [Zhang et al., Phys. Rev. A 73, 014301 (2006)], to generate Bell states for two electron spins confined, respectively, in two distant fullerenes. To this end, we consider the endohedral fullerenes staying in single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and employ auxiliary mobile electrons and selective microwave pulses. The application and the experimental feasibility of our scheme are discussed.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Using Charged Particle Imaging to Study Ultracold Plasma Expansion

We develop a projection imaging technique to study ultracold plasma dynamics. We image the charged particle spatial distributions by extraction with a high-voltage pulse onto a position-sensitive detector. Measuring the 2D width of the ion image at later times (the ion image size in the first 20 $μ$s is dominated by the Coulomb explosion of the dense ion cloud), we extract the plasma expansion velocity. These velocities at different initial electron temperatures match earlier results obtained by measuring the plasma oscillation frequency. The electron image size slowly decreases during the plasma lifetime because of the strong Coulomb force of the ion cloud on the electrons, electron loss and Coulomb explosion effects.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2008

Observation of an ultracold plasma instability

We present the first observation of an instability in an expanding ultracold plasma. We observe periodic emission of electrons from an ultracold plasma in weak, crossed magnetic and electric fields, and a strongly perturbed electron density distribution in electron time-of-flight projection images. We identify this instability as a high-frequency electron drift instability due to the coupling between the electron drift wave and electron cyclotron harmonic, which has large wavenumbers corresponding to wavelengths close to the electron gyroradius.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2008

Ultracold Plasma Expansion in a Magnetic Field

We measure the expansion of an ultracold plasma across the field lines of a uniform magnetic field. We image the ion distribution by extracting the ions with a high voltage pulse onto a position-sensitive detector. Early in the lifetime of the plasma ($< 20$ $μ$s), the size of the image is dominated by the time-of-flight Coulomb explosion of the dense ion cloud. For later times, we measure the 2-D Gaussian width of the ion image, obtaining the transverse expansion velocity as a function of magnetic field (up to 70 G). We observe that the expansion velocity scales as B$^{-1/2}$, explained by a nonlinear ambipolar diffusion model with anisotropic diffusion in two different directions.

physics.plasm-ph↗