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Xiao-Yan Li

Publications and source records attributed to Xiao-Yan Li.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

A statistical relation of energy injection plateaus in multi-band afterglows of gamma-ray bursts

The origin of the plateau phase in gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows remains under debate, with the energy injection model being one of the most competitive explanations. If the plateau is truly driven by energy injection, the average X-ray and optical luminosities during the plateau phase, $L_{\rm X, plat, ave}$ and $L_{\rm opt, plat, ave}$, should naturally be correlated. Moreover, under this scenario, the scaling relations between the luminosities during the plateau and the normal decay phase are expected to be consistent since they share the same origin, i.e., synchrotron radiation from the external forward shock. Therefore, simultaneous multi-band observations are essential to verify this mechanism. In this work, we select a sample of 47 GRBs with simultaneous plateaus in both bands. We calculate their time-averaged isotropic luminosities for the plateau and the subsequent normal decay phases. We find a moderate positive correlation $\log L_{\rm X, plat, ave}=m\log L_{\rm opt, plat, ave}+c$ with a slope $m = 0.86 \pm 0.11$ for the plateau phase. This correlation supports the energy injection origin and offers a promising diagnostic approach to test the model. Furthermore, we obtain a similar slope $m = 1.05 \pm 0.05$ for the normal decay phase, which reinforces the idea that both phases share the same physical origin. Notably, the post-plateau data exhibit a systematic downward shift in luminosity, which may indicate the cessation of the central engine.

astro-ph.HE

Chemically Meaningful Textualization Enables Explainable Validation of Metal-Organic Frameworks by Large Language Models

Computation-ready metal-organic framework (MOF) databases are essential for high-throughput screening, yet many reported crystal structures remain chemically unreasonable or disordered, compromising simulation fidelity. Existing validation approaches can identify non-computation-ready structures, but they often rely on heuristic rules, license requirement, or offer limited interpretability. Here, we show that large language models (LLMs) can serve as interpretable validators of MOF structures when crystallographic information is transformed into chemically meaningful text. By benchmarking nine descriptors, we find that successful LLM-based validation depends not on the amount of structural information alone, but on whether local coordination, framework connectivity, and chemical context are organized into a linguistically learnable representation. Fine-tuned LLMs using specialized descriptors (mof2text) achieve performance comparable to graph-based models in identifying unreasonable MOFs. Importantly, these models extend beyond black-box classification by generating diagnostic rationales for likely error sources, including abnormal bonding, connectivity, and charge states, as well as error-category predictions for annotated datasets. This work establishes chemically informed textualization as the key step that transforms LLMs from generic text models into practical and explainable tools for curating MOF databases.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Building a physics-aware AI ecosystem for solid-state hydrogen storage materials

Hydrogen storage remains a central bottleneck for scalable hydrogen energy systems due to the multiscale and coupled nature of the thermodynamics, kinetics, and microstructural evolution of hydrogen storage materials (HSMs). Although artificial intelligence (AI) has accelerated materials discovery, current approaches remain constrained by fragmented data, limited physical consistency, and weak integration with experimental validation. Here, we propose a unified framework that integrates coherent data infrastructure, physics-grounded modeling, and AI-driven inverse design within a closed-loop discovery paradigm. By embedding physical constraints and experimental feedback, this approach enables adaptive, physically consistent optimization, thereby establishing a pathway toward autonomous, digital-twin-enabled discovery of HSMs.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

Stellar Wind-Blown Bubbles as Environments for Late-Time Rebrightening of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows

We presented the multi-wavelength afterglow fitting results for three events that exhibit late afterglow rebrightening behavior: EP240414a ($z=0.401$), GRB 240529A ($z=2.695$), and GRB 240218A ($z=6.782$), which span a broad range of redshifts, from the local to the high-redshift universe.We prove that the peculiar afterglow light curves of three bursts can be well fitted by structured jets propagated in free-to-shocked stellar wind environment of stellar wind blown bubbles. This scenario offers a self-consistent explanation for the observed subclass of afterglows that exhibit rebrightening that is characterized by steep rises and rapid decays. It also provides a unified solution for such events and offers pathways to study both the jet generation mechanism and the propagation process of jets through the envelope of the progenitor. This study reveals that the structured jets produced by such events exhibit a narrow jet core and a steep angle-dependent energy decay index, suggesting highly magnetized jets. The derived transition radii from free stellar winds to shocked stellar winds for all three events are smaller than 0.5 pc, with statistical analysis of similar events indicating a median value of 0.1 pc, which conflicts with numerical simulation results. We anticipate that future observations by EP and SVOM missions will enhance the understanding of analogous events and further reveal information about progenitors and their circum-environments.

astro-ph.HE

Statistical analysis of multi-band plateaus in gamma-ray burst afterglows

Plateau features are frequently observed in the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), yet their physical origins remain under debate. In this work, we compile a sample of 124 GRBs with known redshifts and simultaneous X-ray and optical afterglow observations. We categorize them into four subsets based on the existence of plateaus and the bands in which they appear. Namely, Dataset 1: plateaus are detected simultaneously in both X-ray and optical bands (75 bursts); Dataset 2: plateaus are only in X-rays (15 bursts); Dataset 3: plateaus appear only in the optical (17 bursts); Dataset 4: no plateaus in either band (17 bursts). We employ these datasets to test the applicability of the energy-injection model by examining whether the temporal decay index $α$ and the spectral index $β$ of GRB afterglows simultaneously satisfy the closure relations in X-ray and optical bands. We find that 47 bursts of Dataset 1 simultaneously obey the closure relations in both bands under the conditions of the electron spectral index $p>2$ and the injection parameter $q\in (0, 0.5)$, and 69 of the dataset for $p>1$ and $q\in (0, 0.8)$, providing a strong support for the energy-injection interpretation. However, for Datasets 2 and 3, although $α$ and $β$ of the plateaus mostly satisfy the closure relations, those in the other band show significant deviations, which implies that bursts with a single-band plateau are inconsistent with the interpretation of energy injection. Furthermore, we also compare the isotropic X-ray energy of plateaus with the rotational energy budget of millisecond magnetars.

astro-ph.HE

Probing blackbody components in gamma-ray bursts from black hole neutrino-dominated accretion flows

A stellar-mass black hole (BH) surrounded by a neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) is generally considered to be the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Neutrinos escaping from the disk will annihilate out of the disk to produce the fireball that could power GRBs with blackbody (BB) components. The initial GRB jet power and fireball launch radius are related to the annihilation luminosity and annihilation height of the NDAFs, respectively. In this paper, we collect 7 GRBs with known redshifts and identified BB components to test whether the NDAF model works. We find that, in most cases, the values of the accretion rates and the central BH properties are all in the reasonable range, suggesting that these BB components indeed originate from the neutrino annihilation process.

astro-ph.HE

GRB afterglows with energy injections in AGN accretion disks

Active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks are widely considered potential hosts for various high-energy transients, including gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The reactivation of GRB central engines can provide additional energy to shocks formed during the interaction of the initially ejected GRB jets with the circumburst material, commonly referred to as energy injections. In this paper, we study GRBs occurring in AGN disks within the context of energy injections. We adopt the standard external forward shock (EFS) model and consider both short- and long-duration GRB scenarios. Light curves for two types of radiation, namely the radiation from the heated disk material (RHDM) and GRB afterglows, are computed. We find that the energy injection facilitates the EFS to break out from the photosphere of the low-density AGN disk at relativistic velocity. Moreover, the energy injection almost does not affect the RHDM but significantly enhances the peak flux of the GRB afterglows.

astro-ph.HE

Adaptive Catalyst Discovery Using Multicriteria Bayesian Optimization with Representation Learning

High-performance catalysts are crucial for sustainable energy conversion and human health. However, the discovery of catalysts faces challenges due to the absence of efficient approaches to navigating vast and high-dimensional structure and composition spaces. In this study, we propose a high-throughput computational catalyst screening approach integrating density functional theory (DFT) and Bayesian Optimization (BO). Within the BO framework, we propose an uncertainty-aware atomistic machine learning model, UPNet, which enables automated representation learning directly from high-dimensional catalyst structures and achieves principled uncertainty quantification. Utilizing a constrained expected improvement acquisition function, our BO framework simultaneously considers multiple evaluation criteria. Using the proposed methods, we explore catalyst discovery for the CO2 reduction reaction. The results demonstrate that our approach achieves high prediction accuracy, facilitates interpretable feature extraction, and enables multicriteria design optimization, leading to significant reduction of computing power and time (10x reduction of required DFT calculations) in high-performance catalyst discovery.

cs.LG

Black hole growths in gamma-ray bursts driven by the Blandford-Znajek mechanism

The Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism in stellar-mass black hole (BH) hyperaccretion systems is generally considered to power gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Based on observational GRB data, we use the BZ mechanism driven by the BH hyperaccretion disc to investigate the evolution of the BH mass and spin after the jets break out from the progenitors. We find that the BH growths are almost independent of initial BH masses. Meanwhile, the BH growths will be more efficient with smaller initial spin parameters. We conclude that (i) the BZ mechanism is efficient for triggering BH growths for only 1 of 206 typical long-duration GRBs; (ii) the mean BH mass growths of ultra-long GRBs are marginal for all 7 samples collected; (iii) for the short-duration GRBs, the results that BHs show minimal growths is consistent with the mass supply limitation in the scenario of compact object mergers.

astro-ph.HE

GRB 200829A: External Shock Origin of the Very Early Prompt Emission?

Long-duration GRB~200829A was detected by Fermi-GBM and Swift-BAT/XRT, and then rapidly observed by other ground-based telescopes. It has a weak $γ$-ray emission in the very early phase and followed by a bright spiky $γ$-ray emission pulse. The radiation spectrum of the very early emission is best fitted by a power-law function with index $\sim -1.7$. However, the bright spiky $γ$-ray pulse, especially the time around the peak, exhibits a distinct two-component radiation spectra, i.e., Band function combined with a blackbody radiation spectrum. We infer the photospheric properties and reveal a medium magnetization at photospheric position by adopting the initial size of the outflow as $r_0=10^9$~cm. It implies that Band component in this pulse may be formed during the dissipation of magnetic field. The power-law radiation spectra found in the very early prompt emission may imply the external-shock origination of this phase. Then, we perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo method fitting on the light-curves of this burst, where the jet corresponding to the $γ$-ray pulses at around $20$~s is used to refresh the external-shock. It is shown that the light-curves of very early phase and X-ray afterglow after $40$~s, involving the X-ray bump at around $100$~s, can be well modelled in the external-shock scenario. For the obtained initial outflow, we estimate the minimum magnetization factor of the jet based on the fact that the photospheric emission of this jet is missed in the very early phase.

astro-ph.HE

GRB 101225A as Orphan Dipole Radiation of a Newborn Magnetar with Precession Rotation in an Off-Axis Gamma-Ray Burst

The unusual multiwavelength lightcurves of GRB 101225A are revisited by assuming that it is from an off-axis GRB powered by a newborn magnetar. We show that its optical afterglow lightcurve is fitted with the forward shock model by parameterizing its jet structure as a Gaussian function with a half opening angle of the jet core as $1.67^{\rm o}$. The derived initial Lorentz factor ($Γ_0$) is 120, and the viewing angle to the jet axis is $θ_v=3.7^{\rm o}$. Tentative QPO signatures of $P=488$ seconds and $P=250\sim 300$ seconds are found with a confidence level of 90\% by analysing its X-ray flares observed in the time interval of $[4900,\ 7500]$ seconds. Its global gamma-ray/X-ray lightcurve and the QPO signatures are represented with the magnetar dipole radiation (DR) model by considering the magnetar precession motion, assuming that the magnetar spindown is dominated by the GW emission. The bulk Lorentz factor of the DR ejecta is limited to 8, being much lower than $Γ_0$. Comparing GRB 101225A with the extremely off-axis GRB 170817A, we suspect that the nature of the two-component jet in GRB 170817A is a combination of a co-axial GRB jet and a DR ejecta. GRB 101225A would be among the brightest ones of the CDF-S XT2 like X-ray transient population driven by newborn magnetars. Discussion on detectability of its gravitational wave emission is also presented.

astro-ph.HE

Transmission Failure Analysis of Multi-Protection Routing in Data Center Networks with Heterogeneous Edge-Core Servers

The recently proposed RCube network is a cube-based server-centric data center network (DCN), including two types of heterogeneous servers, called core and edge servers. Remarkably, it takes the latter as backup servers to deal with server failures and thus achieve high availability. This paper first points out that RCube is suitable as a candidate topology of DCNs for edge computing. Three transmission types are among core and edge servers based on the demand for applications' computation and instant response. We then employ protection routing to analyze the transmission failure of RCube DCNs. Unlike traditional protection routing, which only tolerates a single link or node failure, we use the multi-protection routing scheme to improve fault-tolerance capability. To configure a protection routing in a network, according to Tapolcai's suggestion, we need to construct two completely independent spanning trees (CISTs). A logic graph of RCube, denoted by $L$-$RCube(n,m,k)$, is a network with a recursive structure. Each basic building element consists of $n$ core servers and $m$ edge servers, where the order $k$ is the number of recursions applied in the structure. In this paper, we provide algorithms to construct $\min\{n,\lfloor(n+m)/2\rfloor\}$ CISTs in $L$-$RCube(n,m,k)$ for $n+m\geqslant 4$ and $n>1$. From a combination of the multiple CISTs, we can configure the desired multi-protection routing. In our simulation, we configure up to 10 protection routings for RCube DCNs. As far as we know, in past research, there were at most three protection routings developed in other network structures. Finally, we summarize some crucial analysis viewpoints about the transmission efficiency of DCNs with heterogeneous edge-core servers from the simulation results.

cs.DC

Late Afterglow Bump/Plateau around the Jet Break: Signature of a free-to-shocked wind Environment in Gamma-ray Burst

A number of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) exhibit the late simultaneous bumps in their optical and Xray afterglows around the jet break. Its origin is unclear. Based on the following two facts, we suggest that this feature may sound a transition of circum-burst environment from a free-wind medium to a homogeneous medium. (I) The late bump followed by a steep decay is strongly reminiscent of the afterglows of GRB 170817A, which is attributed to an off-axis observed external-forward shock (eFS) propagating in an interstellar medium. (II) Observations seem to feature a long shallow decay before the late optical bump, which is different from the afterglow of GRB 170817A. In this paper, we study the emission of an eFS propagating in a free-to-shocked wind for on/off-axis observers, where the mass density in the shocked-wind is almost constant. The late simultaneous bumps/plateaux in the optical and X-ray afterglows are really found around the jet break for high-viewing-angle observers. Moreover, there is a long plateau or shallow decay before the late bump in the theoretical light-curves, which is formed during the eFS propagating in the free-wind. For low-viewing-angle observers, the above bumps appear only in the situation that the structured jet has a low characteristic angle and the deceleration radius of the on-axis jet flow is at around or beyond the free-wind boundary. As examples, the X-ray and optical afterglows of GRBs 120326A, 120404A, and 100814A are fitted. We find that an off-axis observed eFS in a free-to-shocked wind can well explain the afterglows in these bursts.

astro-ph.HE

Photospheric Emission in Gamma-ray Bursts: Variability

It is generally believed that the variability of photospheric emission in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) traces that of the jet power. This work further investigates the variability of photospheric emission in a variable jet. By setting a constant $η$ (dimensionless entropy of the jet), we find that the light curve of the photospheric emission shows a ``tracking'' pattern on the time profile of jet power. However, the relative variability is significantly low in the photospheric emission compared with that in the jet power. If the $η$ is genetic variable, the variability of the photospheric emission is not only limited by the jet power but also affected by $η$ strongly. It becomes complex and is generally different from that of the jet power. Moreover, the opposite phase may stand in the variabilities of the photospheric emission at different photon energies. We also find that the relative variability does not remain constant over the photon energies with an obvious reduction at a certain energy. This is consistent with the analysis of GRB 090902B in which an appreciable thermal component has been detected in a wide energy range. For several other GRBs coupling with the thermal component, we conservatively evaluate the variability of the thermal and non-thermal emission, respectively. Our results show that the relative variability of the thermal emission is likely comparable to that of the non-thermal emission for these bursts. In addition, the analysis of GRB~120323A reveals that the variability of the photospheric emission may be of the opposite phase from that of the non-thermal emission.

astro-ph.HE

A Pulsar Wind Nebula Embedded in the Kilonova AT2017gfo Associated with GW 170817/GRB 170817A

The first detected gravitational wave GW170817 from a binary neutron star merger is associated with an important optical transient AT 2017gfo, which is a direct observation of kilonova. Recent observations suggest that the remnant compact object of the binary neutron star merger associated with GW170817/GRB 170817A may be a stable long-lived magnetized neutron star. In this situation, there would be a pulsar wind nebula (PWN) embedded inside the dynamic ejecta. The PWN emission may be absorbed by the ejecta or leak out of the system. We study the effect of the PWN emission on the observed light curves and radiation spectra. Different from previous works, the absorption and leakage of the PWN emission are all involved in our model, where the absorption of the PWN emission heats up the ejecta and alters its radiation. It is found that the characteristic emission of the embedded PWN quickly evolves. For the multiband and long-term observations of AT 2017gfo, we find that the dynamic ejecta with a PWN emission can fit the observational data very well, especially for the light curves at $t\sim 5$ days and those in the late phase. In addition, our model can naturally generate the thermal to nonthermal spectrum evolution of AT 2017gfo. Our fitting result suggests that a PWN is embedded in the AT 2017gfo.

astro-ph.HE

Nearest-Neighbor Broken Bond Model for Describing the Surface Energies of Transition Metals

In our recent works, we used a nearest-neighbor broken bond (NNBB) model to fit the surface energy of Pt, Pd, and Au surfaces [Adv. Theory Simul. 1800127 (2018)]. It was verified that this model could describe the surface energies of above noble metals with high accuracy. The applications of this model in real-time simulations of equilibrium nanocrystal transformations are in good agreements with the experimental observations at macroscopic time scales quantitatively. In this work, we want to further verify the generality of the NNBB model for other transition metals. All surface tentions and lattice constants were extracted from the database of Materials Project. The number of missing NN bonds of different slabs from low-index surfaces to open surfaces were counted for both surface atoms and subsurface atoms. As presented below, linear relationships between surface energies and missing bonds number are found for all studied elements. The bond energies for different metals are obtained through fitting NN bonds and surface energy of different surfaces.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci