arXiv subjects

Xin-Ying Song

Publications and source records attributed to Xin-Ying Song.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Compact Stars as Hideouts For Color-spin-locked Quark Matter: Implications for Powering High-energy Electromagnetic Emissions

The possibility of compact stars as hideouts for color-spin-locked (CSL) quark matter (QM) is investigated in both MIT bag model and Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. Within the framework of NJL model, the idea of absolutely stable quark matter and the existence of conventional pure quark star (QS) are not supported; in addition, there appears to be no stable hybrid configuration above $2M_\odot$ as the hideout for CSL QM. The stable configurations of massive strange quark stars could be reproduced in the MIT bag model with QCD corrections being taken into account; moreover, they could act as the hiding place for the CSL QM. An interesting scenario is proposed that the phase transition to the CSL phase could occur in the cooling process. The CSL quark matter is an electromagnetic (EM) superconductor of Type-I, and a complete Meissner effect is expected. However, the analysis for this sizable superconductor indicates that most of the magnetic field is frozen inside the quark core with a critical strength, while in some special cases a small fraction could be expelled from a thin layer near the surface in a short time. The analysis on energetics and time scale suggests that this process could act as an inducement mechanism to power typical fast radio bursts, but as a single source of energy, it is unlikely to generate other EM emissions such as gamma-ray bursts and giant flares.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Dense Matter in Neutron Stars with eXTP

In this White Paper, we present the potential of the enhanced X-ray Timing and Polarimetry (eXTP) mission to constrain the equation of state of dense matter in neutron stars, exploring regimes not directly accessible to terrestrial experiments. By observing a diverse population of neutron stars - including isolated objects, X-ray bursters, and accreting systems - eXTP's unique combination of timing, spectroscopy, and polarimetry enables high-precision measurements of compactness, spin, surface temperature, polarimetric signals, and timing irregularity. These multifaceted observations, combined with advances in theoretical modeling, pave the way toward a comprehensive description of the properties and phases of dense matter from the crust to the core of neutron stars. Under development by an international Consortium led by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the eXTP mission is planned to be launched in early 2030.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2025

Constraints from Gamma-ray Burst Phenomenology on the Hypothesis of Quark Star as the central engines of Gamma-ray Bursts

The existence of a strange quark star (QS) predicted in the Bodmer-Witten hypothesis has been a matter of debate. The combustion from a neutron star to a strange QS in its accreted process in a low-mass X-ray binary is proposed to be a scenario that generates gamma-ray bursts (GRBs); the baryon contamination of the outflow is very low and mainly from the masses of crusts ($M_{\rm crust}$) of QSs. A special subset of GRBs detected in the past 16 years are collected and used to estimate $M_{\rm crust}$ under this assumption of QSs as central engines. Correspondingly, $M_{\rm crust}$ is calculated in the frameworks of several models for cold dense quark matter (MIT bag model and Nambu-Jona-Lasino model with or without the impacts from the formation of color superconducting condensates being considered), for comparison with the observation. In conclusion, we find that the GRB samples have so far failed to provide positive support for this hypothesis, and the NJL model in which the existence of hybrid stars is allowed might be more consistent with the observation.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

Spectral and Jet Properties of the Quasi-thermal Dominated GRB 210121A, GRB 210610B and GRB 221022B

Some quasi-thermal (QT) dominated gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could be well described by a multi-color blackbody (BB) function or a combined model of BB plus non-thermal (NT) component. In this analysis, two QT radiation-dominated bursts with known emission properties (GRB 210610B likely from a hybrid jet, and GRB 210121A with a spectrum consistent with a non-dissipative photospheric emission from a pure hot fireball) are used to make a comparison between these two modelings. To diagnose the magnetization properties of the central engine, the `top-down' approach proposed by Gao \& Zhang is adopted. It is found that diagnoses based on these two modelings could provide similar conclusions qualitatively; however, the modeling with mBB (or mBB+NT) may give more reasonable physical explanations. This implies that impacts from the GRB jet structure and the geometrical broadening on the observed spectrum should be considered. However, conservatively, these methods may be not sensitive enough to distinguish between the pure hot fireball and a mildly magnetized hybrid jet. Some other information is necessary to provide more evidence for the determination of jet properties for similar GRBs. Based on these considerations, we suggest that the photospheric emission of GRB 221022B is from a hot jet; a dissipation is caused by a internal shock (IS) mechanism due to the increasing Lorentz Factor with time, which makes its prompt emission behaves a typical evolution from thermal to NT.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

On the 'Loose' Constraint from IceCube Neutrino Non-Detection of GRB 230307A

The recent extremely bright gamma-ray burst (GRB), GRB 230307A from a binary neutron star merger may offer a good probe for the production of GRB-neutrinos. Within the constraint from IceCube neutrino non-detection, the limits for key physical parameters of this burst are extracted in different scenarios including the fireball, Poynting-flux-dominated (PFD) and hybrid jet. Different from the former nearby `monsters' and due to its smaller isotropic equivalent radiated energy ($E_{γ,\rm iso}\sim4\times10^{52}$ erg), the constraint seems loose if non-thermal neutrinos produced from photomeson interactions are the only consideration. However, a quasi-thermal neutrino emission from hadronuclear processes is constrained in this neutron-rich post-merger environment, and the upper limit of the allowed nucleon loading factor is about a few. Based on this, a discussion is presented on the possible prompt emission mechanism and jet composition for GRB 230307A in the context of multi-messenger astrophysics. It is worth noting that till now no GRB-neutrinos have been ever detected, even for the two brightest nearby GRBs ever observed (GRB 221009A and GRB 230307A) which have different dissipation mechanisms.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

GRB 221009A with an unconventional precursor: a typical two-stage collapsar scenario?

As the brightest Gamma-Ray burst (GRB) ever detected, GRB 221009A may offer a chance that reveals some interesting features which are hidden in those bursts that are not so bright. There seems a very weak emission with a flux of $10^{-8}\sim10^{-7}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ between the first pulse ($T_0\sim T_0+50$~s, $T_0$ is the trigger time) and the main burst (appears from $T_0+180$ s). Thus the gap time between them is not really quiescent, and the first pulse could be taken as an unconventional precursor, which may provide a peculiar case study for the GRB-precursor phenomena. A two-stage collapsar scenario is proposed as the most likely origin for this burst. In this model, the jet for the precursor is produced during the initial core-collapse phase, and should be weak enough not to disrupt the star when it breaks out of the envelope, so that the fallback accretion process and the forming of the disk could continue. We present an approach in which the duration and flux both provide constraints on the luminosity ($L_{\rm j}$) and the Lorentz factor at the breakout time ($Γ_{\rm b}$) of this weak jet. The estimated $L_{\rm j}\lesssim 10^{49}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and $Γ_{\rm b}$ has an order of ten, which are well consistent with the theoretical prediction. Besides, the weak emission in the gap time could be interpreted as a MHD outflow due to a magnetically driven wind during the period from the proto-neutron star phase to forming the accretion disk in this scenario.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2023

Insight-HXMT and GECAM-C observations of the brightest-of-all-time GRB 221009A

GRB 221009A is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected since the discovery of this kind of energetic explosions. However, an accurate measurement of the prompt emission properties of this burst is very challenging due to its exceptional brightness. With joint observations of \textit{Insight}-HXMT and GECAM-C, we made an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the emission during the first $\sim$1800 s of GRB 221009A, including its precursor, main emission (ME, which dominates the burst in flux), flaring emission and early afterglow, in the hard X-ray to soft gamma-ray band from $\sim$ 10 keV to $\sim$ 6 MeV. Based on the GECAM-C unsaturated data of the ME, we measure a record-breaking isotropic equivalent energy ($E_{\rm iso}$) of $\bf \sim 1.5 \times 10^{55}$ erg, which is about eight times the total rest-mass energy of the Sun. The early afterglow data require a significant jet break between 650 s and 1100 s, most likely at $\sim950$ s from the afterglow starting time $T_{AG}$, which corresponds to a jet opening angle of $\sim {0.7^\circ} \ (η_γn)^{1/8}$, where $n$ is the ambient medium density in units of $\rm cm^{-3}$ and $η_γ$ is the ratio between $γ$-ray energy and afterglow kinetic energy. The beaming-corrected total $γ$-ray energy $E_γ$ is $\sim 1.15 \times10^{51} \ (η_γn)^{1/4}$ erg, which is typical for long GRBs. These results suggest that this GRB may have a special central engine, which could launch and collimate a very narrowly beamed jet with an ordinary energy budget, leading to exceptionally luminous gamma-ray radiation per unit solid angle. Alternatively, more GRBs might have such a narrow and bright beam, which are missed by an unfavorable viewing angle or have been detected without distance measurement.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

GECAM Localization of High Energy Transients and the Systematic Error

Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is a pair of microsatellites (i.e. GECAM-A and GECAM-B) dedicated to monitoring gamma-ray transients including gravitational waves high-energy electromagnetic counterparts, Gamma-ray Bursts, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters, Solar Flares and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. Since launch in December 2020, GECAM-B has detected hundreds of astronomical and terrestrial events. For these bursts, localization is the key for burst identification and classification as well as follow-up observations in multi-wavelength. Here, we propose a Bayesian localization method with Poisson data with Gaussian background profile likelihood to localize GECAM bursts based on the burst counts distribution in detectors with different orientations. We demonstrate that this method can work well for all kinds of bursts, especially for extremely short ones. In addition, we propose a new method to estimate the systematic error of localization based on a confidence level test, which can overcome some problems of the existing method in literature. We validate this method by Monte Carlo simulations, and then apply it to a burst sample with accurate location and find that the mean value of the systematic error of GECAM-B localization is $\sim 2.5^{\circ}$. By considering this systematic error, we can obtain a reliable localization probability map for GECAM bursts. Our methods can be applied to other gamma-ray monitors.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2022

The Origin of the Photospheric Emission of GRB 220426A

GRB 220426A is a bright gamma-ray burst (GRB) dominated by the photospheric emission. We perform several tests to speculate the origin of this photospheric emission. The dimensionless entropy $η$ is large, which is not usual if we assume that it is a pure hot fireball launched by neutrino-antineutrino annihilation mechanism only. Moreover, the outflow has larger $η$ with lower luminosity $L$ in the first few seconds, so that the trend of time-resolved $η-L$ can not be described as a monotonically positive correlation between $η$ and $L$. A hybrid outflow with almost completely thermalized Poynting flux could account for the quasi-thermal spectrum as well as large $η$. More importantly, the existence of magnetic field could affect the proton density and neutron-proton coupling effect, so that it could account for the observed trend of time-resolved $η-L$. The other origins for the photospheric emission, such as non-dissipative hybrid outflow or magnetic reconnection, are not supported because their radiation efficiencies are low, which is not consistent with non-detection of the afterglow for GRB 220426A. Therefore, we think the hybrid outflow may be the most likely origin.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

GRB 210121A: Observation of photospheric emissions from different regimes and the evolution of the outflow

GRB 210121A was observed by Insight-HXMT, Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM), Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi/GBM) on Jan 21st 2021. In this work, photospheric emission from a structured jet is preferred to interpret the prompt emission phase of GRB 210121A and emissions from different regimes are observed on-axis. Particularly, the emission from the intermediate photosphere is first observed in the first 1.3 s of the prompt emission, while those from the other part are dominant by the saturated regime, and offers an alternative explanation compared with the previous work. Moreover, the emissions with considering the intermediate photosphere can well interpret the changes on low-energy photon index $α$ during the pulses. Besides, the evolution of the outflow is extracted from time-resolved analysis, and a correlation of $Γ_0 \propto L^{0.25\pm0.05}_0$ is obtained, which implies that the jet may be mainly launched by neutrino annihilation in a hyper-accretion disk.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

The Hardness-intensity Correlation of Photospheric Emission from a Structured Jet for Gamma-Ray Bursts

For many gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), hardness-intensity correlation (HIC) can be described by a power-law function, $E_{\rm p}\propto F^κ$, where $E_{\rm p}$ is the peak energy of $νF_ν$ spectrum, and $F$ is the instantaneous energy flux. In this paper, HIC of the non-dissipative photospheric emission from a structured jet is studied in different regimes. An intermediate photosphere, which contains both of unsaturated and saturated emissions is introduced, and we find positive $κ<1/4$ in this case. The same conclusion could be generalized to the photospheric emission from a hybrid jet without magnetic dissipations, or that with sub-photospheric magnetic dissipations and fully thermalized. This may imply that the contribution peaking at $\sim1/2$ in the distribution of observed $κ$ are mainly from the prompt emission of GRBs with synchrotron origin. Besides, emissions of the intermediate photosphere could give a smaller low-energy photon index $α$ than that in the unsaturated regime, and naturally reproduce anti-correlation in $α-E_{\rm p}$ in a GRB pulse.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

The First Insight-HXMT Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog: The First Four Years

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), is China's first X-ray astronomy satellite launched on June 15, 2017. The anti-coincidence CsI detectors of the High Energy X-ray telescope (HE) onboard Insight-HXMT could serve as an all-sky gamma-ray monitor in about 0.2-3 MeV. In its first four years of operation, Insight-HXMT has detected 322 Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) by offline search pipeline including blind search and targeted search. For the GOLDEN sample of Insight-HXMT GRBs, joint analyses were performed with other GRB missions, including Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi/GBM), Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift/BAT) and Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM). It shows that Insight-HXMT can provide better constraint on GRB spectrum at higher energy band. The properties of Insight-HXMT GRBs are reported in detail, including their trigger time, duration, spectral parameters, peak fluxes of different time scales and fluence. This catalog is an official product of the Insight-HXMT GRB team.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

The In-Flight Realtime Trigger and Localization Software of GECAM

Realtime trigger and localization of bursts are the key functions of GECAM, which is an all-sky gamma-ray monitor launched in Dec 10, 2020. We developed a multifunctional trigger and localization software operating on the CPU of the GECAM electronic box (EBOX). This onboard software has the following features: high trigger efficiency for real celestial bursts with a suppression of false triggers caused by charged particle bursts and background fluctuation, dedicated localization algorithm optimized for short and long bursts respetively, short time latency of the trigger information which is downlinked throught the BeiDou satellite navigation System (BDS). This paper presents the detailed design and deveopment of this trigger and localization software system of GECAM, including the main functions, general design, workflow and algorithms, as well as the verification and demonstration of this software, including the on-ground trigger tests with simulated gamma-ray bursts made by a dedicated X-ray tube and the in-flight performance to real gamma-ray bursts and magnetar bursts.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

GRB 210121A: A Typical Fireball Burst Detected by Two Small Missions

The Chinese CubeSat Mission, Gamma Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID), recently detected its first gamma-ray burst, GRB 210121A, which was jointly observed by the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM). This burst is confirmed by several other missions, including \fermi and \textit{Insight}-HXMT. We combined multi-mission observational data and performed a comprehensive analysis of the burst's temporal and spectral properties. Our results show that the burst is relatively special in its high peak energy, thermal-like low energy indices, and large fluence. By putting it to the $E_{\rm p}$-$E_{\rmγ, iso}$ relation diagram with assumed distance, we found this burst can be constrained at the redshift range of [0.3,3.0]. The thermal spectral component is also confirmed by the direct fit of the physical models to the observed spectra. Interestingly, the physical photosphere model also constrained a redshift of $z\sim$ 0.3 for this burst, which help us to identify a host galaxy candidate at such a distance within the location error box. Assuming the host galaxy is real, we found the burst can be best explained by the photosphere emission of a typical fireball with an initial radius of $r_0\sim$ 3.2 $\times 10^7$ cm.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Timing analysis of the black hole candidate EXO 1846-031 with Insight-HXMT monitoring

We present the observational results from a detailed timing analysis of the black hole candidate EXO 1846-031 during its outburst in 2019 with the observations of Insight-HXMT, NICER and MAXI. This outburst can be classfied roughly into four different states. Type-C quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed by NICER (about 0.1-6Hz) and Insight-HXMT (about 0.7-8Hz) are also reported in this work. Meanwhile, we study various physical quantities related to QPO frequency.The QPO rms-frequency relationship in three energy band 1-10 keV indicates that there is a turning pointing in frequency around 2 Hz,which is similar to that of GRS 1915+105. A possible hypothesis for the relationship above may be related to the inclination of the source, which may require a high inclination to explain it. The relationships between QPO frequency and QPO rms,hardness,total fractional rms and count rate have also been found in other transient sources, which can indicate that the origin of type-C QPOs is non-thermal.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Discovery of oscillations above 200 keV in a black hole X-ray binary with Insight-HXMT

Low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (LFQPOs) are commonly found in black hole X-ray binaries, and their origin is still under debate. The properties of LFQPOs at high energies (above 30 keV) are closely related to the nature of the accretion flow in the innermost regions, and thus play a crucial role in critically testing various theoretical models. The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) is capable of detecting emissions above 30 keV, and is therefore an ideal instrument to do so. Here we report the discovery of LFQPOs above 200 keV in the new black hole MAXI J1820+070 in the X-ray hard state, which allows us to understand the behaviours of LFQPOs at hundreds of kiloelectronvolts. The phase lag of the LFQPO is constant around zero below 30 keV, and becomes a soft lag (that is, the high-energy photons arrive first) above 30 keV. The soft lag gradually increases with energy and reaches ~0.9s in the 150-200 keV band. The detection at energies above 200 keV, the large soft lag and the energy-related behaviors of the LFQPO pose a great challenge for most currently existing models, but suggest that the LFQPO probably originates from the precession of a small-scale jet.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Studies on the time response distribution of Insigh}-HXMT/LE

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) named Insight is China's first X-ray astronomical satellite. The Low Energy X-ray Telescope (LE) is one of its main payloads onboard. The detectors of LE adopt swept charge device CCD236 with L-shaped transfer electrodes. Charges in detection area are read out continuously along specific paths, which leads to a time response distribution of photons readout time. We designed a long exposure readout mode to measure the time response distribution. In this mode, CCD236 firstly performs exposure without readout, then all charges generated in preceding exposure phase are read out completely. Through analysis of the photons readout time in this mode, we obtained the probability distribution of photons readout time.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2018

Amplitude analysis of the anomalous decay $η'\toπ^+π^-γ$

In this paper we perform an amplitude analysis of $η'\toπ^+π^-γ$ and confront it with the latest BESIII data. Based on the final-state interaction theorem, we represent the amplitude in terms of an Omnés function multiplied by a form factor that corresponds to the contributions from left-hand cuts and right-hand cuts in the inelastic channels. We also take into account the isospin violation effect induced by $ρ-ω$ mixing. Our results show that the anomaly contribution is mandatory in order to explain the data. Its contribution to the decay width of $Γ(η'\toππγ)$ is larger than that induced by isospin violation. Finally we extract the pole positions of the $ρ$ and $ω$ as well as their corresponding residues.

hep-ph↗