arXiv subjects

Yi-Fei Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Yi-Fei Zhang.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Design and characterization of W-band and D-band calibration sources for the AliCPT-1 experiment

Ali Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Telescope (AliCPT-1) is the first Chinese cosmic microwave background experiment aiming to make sensitive polarization maps of the potential B-mode signal from inflationary gravitational waves. The telescope was deployed on the Tibet Ali site at 5250 m above sea level in early 2025. Before and after each observation season, the instrument performance must be carefully calibrated, including the far field beam performance, far sidelobe, spectral response, polarization angle, and cross-polar beam response. To characterize these optical performances, several calibrators have been developed. We developed a W-band source and a D-band source for the AliCPT-1 telescope's beam characterizations. We present the design and performance of the two calibration sources.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2025

Demonstration of quantum error detection in a silicon quantum processor

Quantum error detection is essential in realizing large-scale universal quantum computation, especially for quantum error correction (QEC). However, key elements for FTQC have yet to be realized in silicon qubits. Here, we demonstrate quantum error detection on a donor-based silicon quantum processor comprising four-nuclear spin qubits and one electron spin as an auxiliary qubit. The entanglement capability of this system is validated through the establishment of two-qubit Bell state entanglement between the nuclear spins and the generation of a four-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state, achieving a GHZ state fidelity of 88.5(2.3)%. Furthermore, by executing a four-qubit error detection circuit with the stabilizers, we successfully detect arbitrary single-qubit errors. The encoded Bell state entanglement information is recovered by performing the Pauli-frame update (PFU) via postprocessing. Based on the detected errors, we identify strongly biased noise in our system. Our results mark a significant advance toward FTQC in silicon spin qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Properties of the QCD Matter: A Review of Selected Results from the ALICE Experiment

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, has been a pivotal tool in advancing our understanding of fundamental physics. By colliding heavy ions (such as lead ions), the LHC recreates conditions similar to those just after the Big Bang. This allows scientists to study the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP), a state of matter where quarks and gluons are not confined within protons and neutrons. These studies provide insights into the strong force and the early universe's behavior. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of recent significant findings from A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) at LHC. The topics encompass measurements regarding to properties of the QGP, particle production, flow and correlations, dileptons, quarkonia and electromagnetic probes, heavy flavor, and jets. Additionally, we introduce future plans for detector upgrades of the ALICE experiment.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2023

Five-year in-orbit background of Insight-HXMT

Purpose: We present the five-year in-orbit background evolution of Insight-HXMT since the launch, as well as the effects of the background model in data analysis. Methods: The backgrounds of the three main payloads, i.e., Low-Energy Telescope, Medium-Energy Telescope and High-Energy Telescope, are described, respectively. The evolution of the background over time is obtained by simply comparing the background in every year during the in-orbit operation of Insight-HXMT. Results: The major observational characteristics of the Insight-HXMT in-orbit background are presented, including the light curve, spectrum, geographical distribution, and long-term evolution. The systematic error in background estimation is investigated for every year. Conclusion: The observational characteristics of the five-year in-orbit background are consistent with our knowledge of the satellite design and the space environment, and the background model is still valid for the latest observations of Insight-HXMT.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2023

In-orbit performance of HE onboard Insight-HXMT in the first 5 years

Purpose: The High-Energy X-ray telescope (HE), one of the three main payloads of the \textit{Insight}-HXMT mission, is composed of eighteen NaI(Tl)/CsI(Na) phoswich detectors, where NaI(Tl) serves as the primary detector covering 20--250\,keV, and CsI(Na) is used as an active shield detector to suppress the background of NaI(Tl) and also serves as an all-sky gamma-ray burst monitor covering 0.2--3\,MeV. In this paper, we review the in-orbit performance of HE in the first 5 years since \textit{Insight}-HXMT was launched on June 15, 2017. Methods: The major performances we concern include the gain and energy resolution of NaI(Tl) and CsI(Na) detectors, the performance of pulse-shape-discriminator (PSD) and system dead-time. In this work, we investigate these performances mainly using the data of blank-sky observations and the data when the telescope in earth occultation. Results: The overall performance of HE/NaI(Tl) is very stable in the first 5 years, whereas the gain of HE/CsI(Na) shows a continuously increasing trend and should be calibrated regularly. Conclusion: In general, HE is still in good health and well-calibrated status after five-year's operation. The in-orbit performance of HE has no significant deviation from expectation. HE is expected to be in operation healthily for another several years of extended mission life.

astro-ph.IM↗

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↗

arXiv2020

Background Model for the High-Energy Telescope of Insight-HXMT

Accurate background estimation is essential for spectral and temporal analysis in astrophysics. In this work, we construct the in-orbit background model for the High-Energy Telescope (HE) of the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (dubbed as Insight-HXMT). Based on the two-year blank sky observations of Insight-HXMT/HE, we first investigate the basic properties of the background and find that both the background spectral shape and intensity have long-term evolution at different geographical sites. The entire earth globe is then divided into small grids, each with a typical area of 5x5 square degrees in geographical coordinate system. For each grid, an empirical function is used to describe the long-term evolution of each channel of the background spectrum; the intensity of the background can be variable and a modification factor is introduced to account for this variability by measuring the contemporary flux of the blind detector. For a given pointing observation, the background model is accomplished by integrating over the grids that are passed by the track of the satellite in each orbit. Such a background model is tested with both the blank sky observations and campaigns for observations of a series of celestial sources. The results show an average systematic error of 1.5% for the background energy spectrum (26-100 keV) under a typical exposure of 8 ks, and <3% for background light curve estimation (30-150 keV). Therefore, the background model introduced in this paper is included in the Insight-HXMT software as a standard part specialized for both spectral and temporal analyses.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2020

Charm and beauty isolation from heavy flavor decay electrons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 200 GeV at RHIC

We present a study of charm and beauty isolation based on a data-driven method with recent measurements on heavy flavor hadrons and their decay electrons in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}}$ = 200 GeV at RHIC. The individual electron $p_{\rm T}$ spectra, $R_{\rm AA}$ and $v_2$ distributions from charmed and beauty hadron decays are obtained. We find that the electron $R_{\rm AA}$ from beauty hadron decays ($R_{\rm AA}^{\rm b\rightarrow e}$) is suppressed in minimum bias Au+Au collisions but less suppressed compared with that from charmed hadron decays at $p_{\rm T}$ $>$ 3.5 GeV/$c$, which indicates that beauty quark interacts with the hot-dense medium with depositing its energy and is consistent with the mass-dependent energy loss scenario. For the first time, the non-zero electron $v_2$ from beauty hadron decays ($v_2^{\rm b\rightarrow e}$) at $p_{\rm T}$ $>$ 3.0 GeV/$c$ is observed and shows smaller elliptic flow compared with that from charmed hadron decays at $p_{\rm T}$ $<$ 4.0 GeV/$c$. At 2.5 GeV/$c$ $<$ $p_{\rm T}$ $<$ 4.5 GeV/$c$, $v_2^{\rm b\rightarrow e}$ is smaller than a number-of-constituent-quark (NCQ) scaling hypothesis. This suggests that beauty quark is unlikely thermalized and too heavy to be moved in a partonic collectivity in heavy-ion collisions at the RHIC energy.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2020

Calibration of the Instrumental Response of Insight-HXMT/HE CsI Detectors for Gamma-Ray Monitoring

The CsI detectors of the High Energy X-ray Telescope of the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT/CsI) can be used for gamma-ray all sky monitoring and searching for the electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational wave source. The instrumental responses are mainly obtained by Monte Carlo simulation with the Geant4 tool and the mass model of both the satellite and all the payloads, which is updated and tested with the Crab pulse emission in various incident directions. Both the Energy-Channel relationship and the energy resolution are calibrated in two working modes (Normal-Gain mode & Low-Gain Mode) with the different detection energy ranges. The simulative spectral analyses show that HXMT/CsI can constrain the spectral parameters much better in the high energy band than that in the low energy band. The joint spectral analyses are performed to ten bright GRBs observed simultaneously with HXMT/CsI and other instruments (Fermi/GBM, Swift/BAT, Konus-Wind), and the results show that the GRB flux given by HXMT/CsI is systematically higher by $7.0\pm8.8\%$ than those given by the other instruments. The HXMT/CsI-Fermi/GBM joint fittings also show that the high energy spectral parameter can be constrained much better as the HXMT/CsI data are used in the joint fittings.

astro-ph.IM↗

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↗

arXiv2016

A study of raining influence on the environmental radiation background spectra with HXMT/HE

Full functional and performance tests were performed many times before the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) launch. During one of the tests, the count rate curves of the 18 High Energy Detectors (HED) have been found increased consistently within an interval of time. A further study on the correlation between the count rate and rainfall was carried out,and the increased net spectrum was also analyzed. The analysis results indicate that the short-lived 222Rn decay products (214Pb and 214Bi) in rainwater were responsible for the transient changes of the background radiation spectra in HEDs. The results show that the HXMT/HEDs have a good detection sensitivity on X/gamma rays, and the detector calibration results are effective.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2013

Design and implementation of the NaI (Tl)CsI (Na) detectors output signal generator

We designed and implemented a signal generator that can simulate the output of the NaI (Tl)CsI (Na) detectors pre amplifier onboard the Hard X ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). Using the development of FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) with VHDL language and adding random constituent, we have finally produced the double exponential random pulse signal generator. The statistical distribution of signal amplitude is programmable. The occurrence time intervals of adjacent signals content negative exponential distribution statistically.

hep-ex↗