arXiv subjects

Yi Xie

Publications and source records attributed to Yi Xie.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Improved upper bounds on Kaluza-Klein gravity with current Solar System experiments and observations

As an extension of previous works on classical tests of Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravity and as an attempt to find more stringent constraints on this theory, its effects on physical experiments and astronomical observations conducted in the Solar System are studied. We investigate the gravitational time delay at inferior conjunction caused by KK gravity, and use new Solar System ephemerides and the observation of \textit{Cassini} to strengthen constraints on KK gravity by up to two orders of magnitude. These improved upper bounds mean that the fifth-dimensional space in the soliton case is a very flat extra dimension in the Solar System, even in the vicinity of the Sun.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Modeling the evolution and distribution of the frequency's second derivative and the braking index of pulsar spin

We model the evolution of the spin frequency's second derivative $\ddotν$ and the braking index $n$ of radio pulsars with simulations within the phenomenological model of their surface magnetic field evolution, which contains a long-term power-law decay modulated by short-term oscillations. For the pulsar PSR B0329+54, a model with three oscillation components can reproduce its $\ddotν$ variation. We show that the "averaged" $n$ is different from the instantaneous $n$, and its oscillation magnitude decreases abruptly as the time span increases, due to the "averaging" effect. The simulated timing residuals agree with the main features of the reported data. Our model predicts that the averaged $\ddotν$ of PSR B0329+54 will start to decrease rapidly with newer data beyond those used in Hobbs et al.. We further perform Monte Carlo simulations for the distribution of the reported data in $|\ddotν|$ and $|n|$ versus characteristic age $τ_{\rm c}$ diagrams. It is found that the magnetic field oscillation model with decay index $α=0$ can reproduce the distributions quite well. Compared with magnetic field decay due to the ambipolar diffusion ($α=0.5$) and the Hall cascade ($α=1.0$), the model with no long term decay ($α=0$) is clearly preferred for old pulsars by the p-values of the two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

Astronomical relativistic reference systems with multipolar expansion: the global one

With rapid development of techniques for astronomical observations, the precision of measurements has been significantly increasing. Theories of astronomical relativistic reference systems, which are the foundation for processing and interpreting these data now and in the future, may require extensions to satisfy the needs of these trends. Besides building a framework compatible with alternative theories of gravity and the pursuit of higher order post-Newtonian approximation, it will also be necessary to make the first order post-Newtonian multipole moments of celestial bodies be explicitly expressed in the astronomical relativistic reference systems. This will bring some convenience into modeling the observations and experiments and make it easier to distinguish different contributions in measurements. As the first step, the global solar system reference system is multipolarly expanded and the post-Newtonian mass and spin moments are shown explicitly in the metric which describes the coordinates of the system. The full expression of the global metric is given.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Interpreting the Spin-down Evolutions of Isolated Neutron Stars with Hall Effects

The observed long-term spin-down evolution of isolated radio pulsars cannot be explained by the standard magnetic dipole radiation with a constant braking torque. However, how and why the torque varies still remains controversial, which is a major issue in understanding neutron stars. Many pulsars have been observed with significant long-term changes of their spin-down rates modulated by quasi-periodic oscillations. Applying the phenomenological model of pulsar timing noise we developed recently to the observed precise pulsar timing data of isolated neutron stars, here we show that the observed long-term evolutions of their spin-down rates and quasi-periodic modulations can be explained by Hall effects in their crusts. Therefore the evolution of their crustal magnetic fields, rather than that in their cores, dominates the observed long term spin-down evolution of these young pulsars. Understanding of the nature of pulsar timing noise not only reveals the interior physics of neutron stars, but also allows physical modeling of pulsar spin-down and thus improves the sensitivity of gravitational wave detections with pulsars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2014

On the (im)possibility of testing new physics in exoplanets using transit timing variations: deviation from inverse-square law of gravity

Ground-based and space-borne observatories studying exoplanetary transits now and in the future will considerably increase the number of known exoplanets and the precision of the measured times of transit minima. Variations in the transit times can not only be used to infer the presence of additional planets, but might also provide opportunities for testing new physics in the places beyond the Solar system. In this work, we take deviation from the inverse-square law of gravity as an example, focus on the fifth-force-like Yukawa-type correction to the Newtonian gravitational force which parameterizes this deviation, investigate its effects on the secular transit timing variations and analyze their observability in exoplanetary systems. It is found that the most optimistic values of Yukawa-type secular transit timing variations are at the level of $\sim 0.1$ seconds per year. Those values unfortunately appear only in rarely unique cases and, most importantly, they are still at least two orders of magnitude below the current capabilities of observations. Such a deviation from the inverse-square law of gravity is likely too small to detect for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, systematic uncertainties, such as the presence of additional and unknown planets, will likely be exceptionally difficult to remove from a signal that should be seen.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Rotational Behaviors and Magnetic Field Evolution of Radio Pulsars

The observed long-term spin-down evolution of isolated radio pulsars cannot be explained by the standard magnetic dipole radiation with a constant braking torque. However how and why the torque varies still remains controversial, which is an outstanding problem in our understanding of neutron stars. We have constructed a phenomenological model of the evolution of surface magnetic fields of pulsars, which contains a long-term decay modulated by short-term oscillations; a pulsar's spin is thus modified by its magnetic field evolution. The predictions of this model agree with the precisely measured spin evolutions of several individual pulsars; the derived parameters suggest that the Hall drift and Hall waves in the NS crusts are probably responsible for the long-term change and short-term quasi-periodical oscillations, respectively. Many statistical properties of the timing noise of pulsars can be well re-produced with this model, including correlations and the distributions of the observed braking indices of the pulsars, which span over a range of more than 100 millions. We have also presented a phenomenological model for the recovery processes of classical and slow glitches, which can successfully model the observed slow and classical glitch events without biases.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2013

$f(T)$ gravity: effects on astronomical observation and Solar System experiments and upper-bounds

As an extension of a previous work in which perihelion advances are considered only and as an attempt to find more stringent constraints on its parameters, we investigate effects on astronomical observation and experiments conducted in the Solar System due to the $f(T)$ gravity which contains a quadratic correction of $αT^2$ ($α$ is a model parameter) and the cosmological constant $Λ$. Using a spherical solution describing the Sun's gravitational field, the resulting secular evolution of planetary orbital motions, light deflection, gravitational time delay and frequency shift are calculated up to the leading contribution. Among them, we find qualitatively that the light deflection holds a unique bound on $α$, without dependence on $Λ$, and the time delay experiments during inferior conjunction impose a clean constraint on $Λ$, regardless of $α$. Based on observation and experiments, especially the supplementary advances in the perihelia provided by the INPOP10a ephemeris, we obtain the upper-bounds quantitatively: $|α| \le 1.2 \times 10^{2}$ m${}^2$ and $ |Λ| \le 1.8 \times 10^{-43}$ m${}^{-2}$, at least 10 times tighter than the previous result.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Spacecraft Doppler tracking with possible violations of LLI and LPI: a theoretical modeling

Currently two-way and three-way spacecraft Doppler tracking techniques are widely used and playing important roles in control and navigation for deep space missions. Starting from one-way Doppler model, we extend the models of two-way and three-way Doppler by making them include possible violations of the local Lorentz invariance (LLI) and the local position invariance (LPI) in order to test the Einstein equivalence principle which is the cornerstone of general relativity and all other metric theories of gravity. After taking the finite speed of light into account, which is so-called light-time solution (LTS), we have these models depending on the time of reception of the signal only for practical convenience. We find that possible violations of LLI and LPI can not affect two-way Doppler under linear approximation of LTS although this approximation is sufficiently good for most cases in the solar system. We also show that, in three-way Doppler, possible violations of LLI and LPI associate with two stations only, which suggests that it is better to set the stations at places with significant differences in velocities and gravitational potentials to obtain high level of sensitivity for tests.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

On the Relaxation Behaviors of Slow and Classical Glitches: Observational Biases and Their Opposite Recovery Trends

We study the pulsar timing properties and the data analysis methods during glitch recoveries. In some cases one first fits the time-of-arrivals (TOAs) to obtain the "time-averaged" frequency $ν$ and its first derivative $\dotν$, and then fits models to them. However, our simulations show that $ν$ and $\dotν$ obtained this way are systematically biased, unless the time intervals between the nearby data points of TOAs are smaller than about $10^4$ s, which is much shorter than typical observation intervals. Alternatively, glitch parameters can be obtained by fitting the phases directly with relatively smaller biases; but the initial recovery timescale is usually chosen by eyes, which may introduce a strong bias. We also construct a phenomenological model by assuming a pulsar's spin-down law of $\dotνν^{-3} =-H_0 G(t)$ with $G(t)=1+κe^{-t/τ}$ for a glitch recovery, where $H_0$ is a constant and $κ$ and $τ$ are the glitch parameters to be found. This model can reproduce the observed data of slow glitches from B1822--09 and a giant classical glitch of B2334+61, with $κ<0$ or $κ>0$, respectively. We then use this model to simulate TOA data and test several fitting procedures for a glitch recovery. The best procedure is: 1) use a very high order polynomial (e.g. to 50th order) to precisely describe the phase; 2) then obtain $ν(t)$ and $\dotν(t)$ from the polynomial; and 3) the glitch parameters are obtained from $ν(t)$ or $\dotν(t)$. Finally, the uncertainty in the starting time $t_0$ of a classical glitch causes uncertainties to some glitch parameters, but less so to a slow glitch and $t_0$ of which can be determined from data.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Modeling the Evolution and Distribution of the Frequency's Second Derivative and Braking Index of Pulsar Spin with Simulations

We model the evolution of spin frequency's second derivative $\ddotν$ and braking index $n$ of radio pulsars with simulations within the phenomenological model of their surface magnetic field evolution, which contains a long-term decay modulated by short-term oscillations. For the pulsar PSR B0329+54, the model can reproduce the main characteristics of its $\ddotν$ variation with oscillation periods, predicts another $\sim 50$ yr oscillation component and another recent swing of the sign of $\ddotν$. We show that the "averaged" $n$ is different from the instantaneous $n$, and its oscillation magnitude decreases abruptly as the time span increases, due to the "averaging" effect. The simulation predicted timing residuals agree with the main features of the reported data. We further perform Monte Carlo simulations for the distribution of the reported data in $|\ddotν|$ versus characteristic age $τ_{\rm c}$ diagram. The model with a power law index $α=0.5$ can reproduce the slope of the linear fit to pulsars' distributions in the diagrams of $\log|\ddotν|-\logτ_{\rm c}$ and $\log|n|-\logτ_{\rm c}$, but the oscillations are responsible for the almost equal number of positive and negative values of $\ddotν$, in agreement with our previous analytical studies; an oscillation period of about several decades is also preferred. However the range of the oscillation amplitudes is $-11.4\lesssim\log f\lesssim-10.2$, slightly lager than the analytical prediction, $\log f\simeq-11.85$, because the "averaging" effect was not included previously.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Aberration in proper motions for stars in our Galaxy

Accelerations of both the solar system barycenter (SSB) and stars in the Milky Way cause a systematic observational effect on the stellar proper motions, which was first studied in the early 1990s and developed by J. Kovalevsky (aberration in proper motions, 2003, A&A, 404, 743). This paper intends to extend that work and aims to estimate the magnitude and significance of the aberration in proper motions of stars, especially in the region near the Galactic center. We adopt two models for the Galactic rotation curve to evaluate the aberrational effect on the Galactic plane. Based on the theoretical developments, we show that the effect of aberration in proper motions depends on the galactocentric distance of stars; it is dominated by the acceleration of stars in the central region of the Galaxy. Within 200 pc from the Galactic center, the systematic proper motion can reach an amplitude larger than 1000 uas/yr by applying a flat rotation curve. With a more realistic rotation curve which is linearly rising in the core region of the Galaxy, the aberrational proper motions are limited up to about 150 uas/yr. Then we investigate the applicability of the theoretical expressions concerning the aberrational proper motions, especially for those stars with short period orbits. If the orbital period of stars is only a fraction of the light time from the star to the SSB, the expression proposed by Kovalevsky is not appropriate. With a more suitable formulation, we found that the aberration has no effect on the determination of the stellar orbits on the celestial sphere. The aberrational effect under consideration is small but not negligible with high-accurate astrometry in the future, particularly in constructing the Gaia celestial reference system realized by Galactic stars.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2013

Yukawa effects on the clock onboard a drag-free satellite

The Yukawa correction to the Newtonian gravitational force is accepted as a parameterization of deviations from the inverse-square law of gravity which might be caused by new physics beyond the standard model of particles and the general theory of relativity. We investigate these effects on the clock onboard a drag-free satellite: dynamics of the satellite and influence on the time transfer link. We find the Yukawa signal in the time transfer is much harder to detect with current state of clocks than those effects on the dynamics, especially the secular change of periastron, by laser ranging in the case of an artificial Earth satellite carrying a frequency standard with an orbit of $a=10^7$\,m and $e=0.01$.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

Why do the braking indices of pulsars span a range of more than 100 millions?

Here we report that the observed braking indices of the 366 pulsars in the sample of Hobbs et al. range from about $-10^8$ to about $+10^8$ and are significantly correlated with their characteristic ages. Using the model of magnetic field evolution we developed previously based on the same data, we derived an analytical expression for the braking index, which agrees with all the observed statistical properties of the braking indices of the pulsars in the sample of Hobbs et al. Our model is, however, incompatible with the previous interpretation that magnetic field growth is responsible for the small values of braking indices ($<3$) observed for "baby" pulsars with characteristic ages of less than $2\times 10^3$ yr. We find that the "instantaneous" braking index of a pulsar may be different from the "averaged" braking index obtained from fitting the data over a certain time span. The close match between our model-predicted "instantaneous" braking indices and the observed "averaged" braking indices suggests that the time spans used previously are usually smaller than or comparable to their magnetic field oscillation periods. Our model can be tested with the existing data, by calculating the braking index as a function of the time span for each pulsar. In doing so, one can obtain for each pulsar all the parameters in our magnetic field evolution model, and may be able to improve the sensitivity of using pulsars to detect gravitational waves.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

Progenitors of Magnetars and Hyperaccreting Magnetized Disks

We propose that a magnetar could be formed during the core collapse of massive stars or coalescence of two normal neutron stars, through collecting and inheriting the magnetic fields magnified by hyperaccreting disk. After the magnetar is born, its dipole magnetic fields in turn have a major influence on the following accretion. The decay of its toroidal field can fuel the persistent X-ray luminosity of either an SGR or AXP; however the decay of only the poloidal field is insufficient to do so.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

Testing Models of Magnetic Field Evolution of Neutron Stars with the Statistical Properties of Their Spin Evolutions

We test models for the evolution of neutron star (NS) magnetic fields (B). Our model for the evolution of the NS spin is taken from an analysis of pulsar timing noise presented by Hobbs et al. (2010). We first test the standard model of a pulsar's magnetosphere in which B does not change with time and magnetic dipole radiation is assumed to dominate the pulsar's spin-down. We find this model fails to predict both the magnitudes and signs of the second derivatives of the spin frequencies ($\ddotν$). We then construct a phenomenological model of the evolution of $B$, which contains a long term decay (LTD) modulated by short term oscillations (STO); a pulsar's spin is thus modified by its B-evolution. We find that an exponential LTD is not favored by the observed statistical properties of $\ddotν$ for young pulsars and fails to explain the fact that $\ddotν$ is negative for roughly half of the old pulsars. A simple power-law LTD can explain all the observed statistical properties of $\ddotν$. Finally we discuss some physical implications of our results to models of the B-decay of NSs and suggest reliable determination of the true ages of many young NSs is needed, in order to constrain further the physical mechanisms of their B-decay. Our model can be further tested with the measured evolutions of $\dotν$ and $\ddotν$ for an individual pulsar; the decay index, oscillation amplitude and period can also be determined this way for the pulsar.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2012

Testing Lorentz violation with binary pulsars: constraints on standard model extension

Under the standard model extension (SME) framework, Lorentz invariance is tested in five binary pulsars: PSR J0737-3039, PSR B1534+12, PSR J1756-2251, PSR B1913+16 and PSR B2127+11C. By analyzing the advance of periastron, we obtain the constraints on a dimensionless combination of SME parameters that is sensitive to timing observations. The results imply no evidence for the break of Lorentz invariance at $10^{-10}$ level, one order of magnitude larger than previous estimation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

2PN Light Propagation in the Scalar-Tensor Theory: an $N$-Point-Masses Case

Within the framework of the scalar-tensor theory (STT), its second post-Newtonian (2PN) approximation is obtained with Chandrasekhar's approach. By focusing on an $N$-point-masses system as the first step, we reduce the metric to its 2PN form for light propagation. Unlike previous works, at 2PN order, we abandon the hierarchized hypothesis and do not assume two parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) parameters $γ$ and $β$ to be unity. We find that although there exist $γ$ and $β$ in the 2PN metric, only $γ$ appears in the 2PN equations of light. As a simple example for applications, a gauge-invariant angle between the directions of two incoming photons for a differential measurement is investigated after the light trajectory is solved in a static and spherically symmetric spacetime. It shows the deviation from the general relativity (GR) $δθ_{\mathrm{STT}}$ does \emph{not} depend on $β$ even at 2PN level in this circumstance, which is consistent with previous results. A more complicated application is light deflection in a 2-point-masses system. We consider a case that the light propagation time is much less than the time scale of its orbital motion and thus treat it as a static system. The 2-body effect at 2PN level originating from relaxing the hierarchized hypothesis is calculated. Our analysis shows the 2PN 2-body effect in the Solar System is one order of magnitude less than future $\sim 1$ nas experiments, while this effect could be comparable with 1PN component of $δθ_{\mathrm{STT}}$ in a binary system with two Sun-like stars and separation by $\sim 0.1$ AU if an experiment would be able to measure $γ-1$ down to $\sim 10^{-6}$.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

Modeling pulsar time noise with long term power law decay modulated by short term oscillations of the magnetic fields of neutron stars

We model the evolution of the magnetic fields of neutron stars as consisting of a long term power-law decay modulated by short term small amplitude oscillations. Our model predictions on the timing noise $\ddotν$ of neutron stars agree well with the observed statistical properties and correlations of normal radio pulsars. Fitting the model predictions to the observed data, we found that their initial parameter implies their initial surface magnetic dipole magnetic field strength ~ 5E14 G at ~0.4 year old and that the oscillations have amplitude between E-8 to E-5 and period on the order of years. For individual pulsars our model can effectively reduce their timing residuals, thus offering the potential of more sensitive detections of gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays. Finally our model can also re-produce their observed correlation and oscillations of the second derivative of spin frequency, as well as the "slow glitch" phenomenon.

astro-ph.HE↗