arXiv subjects

Yongyuan Xiang

Publications and source records attributed to Yongyuan Xiang.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

SN 2022erq: A Superluminous Thermonuclear Supernova with Escalating Preexplosion Mass Loss

We present a photometric and spectroscopic study of the superluminous Type Ia supernova SN 2022erq. Its early spectra, dominated by iron-group elements with weak intermediate-mass features, might indicate highly efficient nuclear burning, broadly similar to that inferred for some overluminous SNe Ia. The rapid emergence and persistence of narrow Balmer emission lines superposed on this iron-rich spectrum provide clear evidence of long-lived interaction with a hydrogen-rich circumstellar medium (CSM), establishing SN 2022erq as a member of the rare Ia-CSM class. SN 2022erq reached a peak bolometric luminosity of about 8 x 10^43 erg/s and exhibited an exceptionally slow post-peak decline, indicating that its light curve is dominated by long-duration ejecta-CSM interaction. By combining H-alpha diagnostics with bolometric light-curve modeling, we reconstruct the pre-explosion mass-loss history of the progenitor. The mass-loss rate escalated by one order of magnitude over the final decades, rising from about 0.04 to about 0.6 solar masses per year. This surge produced a massive, extended CSM shell of about 3 solar masses out to about 3.5 x 10^16 cm. The young stellar environment (about 100 Myr) together with this substantial, extensive CSM points to a progenitor system consisting of a white dwarf and an intermediate-mass companion that underwent increasing mass loss prior to explosion.

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arXiv2026

Repeated Sunspot Light Bridge Jets Associated with Slipping Base Brightenings

Light bridge (LB) jets offer a unique window into small-scale eruptive phenomena within sunspots, the Sun's strongest magnetic environments; however, their generation mechanism remains a subject of debate. Using high-resolution observations from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST), we investigated six recurrent light bridge jets and the slipping motions of their jet base points (JBPs). Analogous to coronal jets, our observations show that these LB jets are characterized by a preceding JBP followed by a collimated jet spire. The JBP of each repeated jet along the LB displays apparent slipping motion at velocities of 0.6-1.5 km/s, which is temporally correlated with quasi-periodic enhanced photospheric horizontal motion of 1.3-6.5 km/s. Following the slipping JBPs, the resulting jet spires' fronts display similar slipping behaviors within the upper solar atmosphere. The Chinese Ha Solar Explorer (CHASE) reveals Ellerman-bomb-like spectral signatures at the JBPs, confirming that magnetic reconnection is operating at the jet base. Based on these results, we propose that repeated 3D reconnection occurring between the horizontal LB field and the ambient vertical umbral field may drive these LB jets. This process appears to be driven and/or modulated by quasi-periodic horizontal motion fueled by convective upflows and the transport of magnetic flux along the light bridge. This work suggests that some LB jets share a common reconnection-driven mechanism with coronal jets and provides direct evidence of slipping reconnection occurring along the sunspot light bridge.

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arXiv2025

The Alignment of High-resolution Solar Prominence Images Observed by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope

High spatial resolution observation of solar prominence is an important observation subject of the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST). While the current level of observation and image reconstruction technologies for solar prominences are advanced, a significant challenge remains in achieving high-precision alignment among high-resolution prominence images observed at different times and different off-bands. Existing alignment approaches either become ineffective or yield low accuracy, and always require manual intervention during the alignment. These limitations are largely due to the stronger edge gradient and lower structural contrast of the prominence images compared with the solar surface ones. In response to this challenge, our study aims to develop an effective and robust algorithm for high-precision alignment of the prominence images. We thoroughly consider the unique structural characteristics of prominence images and the specific application conditions of various alignment algorithms. Consequently, we propose a comprehensive alignment method that incorporates the optical flow field of the solar surface, the gradient of the solar edge, and the cross-correlation within the solar prominence region. This method is designed to accurately determine the movement displacements among the prominence images. Our results demonstrate that this alignment method excels in both accuracy and robustness, making it well-suited for handling the diverse postures of solar prominence images captured by the NVST.

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arXiv2025

Observational Analysis of Multi-thermal Counter-streaming Flows in a Forming Filament and Their Relationship with Local Heating at Filament Footpoints

Utilizing high-resolution imaging and spectroscopic observations from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST), the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), we investigated the nature and origin of counter-streaming flows within a forming active region filament. The ever-present counter-streaming flows observed within the filament are identified as interleaved unidirectional mass flows in opposing directions occurring in neighboring threads. Multi-wavelength observations corroborate the multi-thermal nature of these counter-streaming flows: the cool H$α$ component flows at about 10--20 km s$^{-1}$, while the warm ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet components reach 40--70 km s$^{-1}$. The Si~{\sc iv} 1400~Å line reveals significant micro-turbulence in the filament's counter-streaming flows, with a nonthermal velocity width of 40 km s$^{-1}$. These multi-thermal flows emanate from compact brightenings at the filament's ends, manifesting as small-scale, collimated upflows at their nascent phase. They continuously inject both chromospheric and transition region plasma into the filament channel, thereby feeding the counter-streaming flows. At their base, the Si~{\sc iv} and C~{\sc ii} spectral lines show pronounced line broadening and intensity enhancements, indicating significant localized chromospheric heating. Additionally, numerous small-scale photospheric flux emergence and cancellation events, with magnitude of $10^{17}$~Mx, are detected near their base. We suggest such weak magnetic-field activities, possibly associated with unresolved magnetic reconnection events, drive these persistent upflows and localized footpoint heating. This work elucidates the multi-thermal origin of counter-streaming flows within a forming filament and provides evidence of localized chromospheric heating at the filament footpoints.

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arXiv2024

Failure of a solar filament eruption caused by magnetic reconnection with overlying coronal loops

Failure of a filament eruption caused by magnetic reconnection between the erupting filament and the overlying magnetic field has been previously proposed in numerical simulations. It is, however, rarely observed. In this study, we report the reconnection between an erupting filament and its overlying coronal loops, that results in the failure of the filament eruption. On 2023 September 24, a filament was located in active region 13445. It slowly rose, quickly erupted, rapidly decelerated, and finally stopped, with an untwisting motion. As a failed eruption, the event is associated with an M4.4 flare but no coronal mass ejection. During the eruption, the filament became bright, and the overlying loops appeared first in the high-temperature channels. They have average temperatures of ~12.8 and ~9.6MK, respectively, indicating that both of them were heated. Two sets of new loops, separately connecting the filament endpoints and the overlying loop footpoints, then formed. Subsequently, the heated overlying loops were seen sequentially in the low-temperature channels, showing the cooling process, which is also supported by the light curves. Plasmoids formed, and propagated bidirectionally along the filament and the overlying loops, indicating the presence of plasmoid instability. These results suggest that reconnection occurs between the erupting filament and the overlying loops. The erupting filament eventually disappeared, with the appearance of more newly-formed loops. We propose that the reconnection between the erupting filament and the overlying loops ruins the filament completely, and hence results in the failed eruption.

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arXiv2022

Reconfiguration and eruption of a solar filament by magnetic reconnection with an emerging magnetic field

Both observations and simulations suggest that the solar filament eruption is closely related to magnetic flux emergence. It is thought that the eruption is triggered by magnetic reconnection between the filament and the emerging flux. However, the details of such a reconnection are rarely presented. In this study, we report the detailed reconnection between a filament and its nearby emerging fields, that led to the reconfiguration and subsequent partial eruption of the filament located over the polarity inversion line of active region 12816. Before the reconnection, we observed repeated brightenings in the filament at a location that overlies a site of magnetic flux cancellation. Plasmoids form at this brightening region, and propagate bi-directionally along the filament. These indicate the tether-cutting reconnection that results in the formation and eruption of a flux rope. To the northwest of the filament, magnetic fields emerge, and reconnect with the context ones, resulting in repeated jets. Afterwards, another magnetic fields emerge near the northwestern filament endpoints, and reconnect with the filament, forming the newly reconnected filament and loops. Current sheet repeatedly occurs at the interface, with the mean temperature and emission measure of 1.7 MK and 1.1$\times$10$^{28}$ cm$^{-5}$. Plasmoids form in the current sheet, and propagate along it and further along the newly reconnected filament and loops. The newly reconnected filament then erupts, while the unreconnected filament remains stable. We propose that besides the orientation of emerging fields, some other parameters, such as the position, distance, strength, and area, are also crucial for triggering the filament eruption.

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arXiv2022

High-resolution Solar Image Reconstruction Based on Non-rigid Alignment

Suppressing the interference of atmospheric turbulence and obtaining observation data with a high spatial resolution is an issue to be solved urgently for ground observations. One way to solve this problem is to perform a statistical reconstruction of short-exposure speckle images. Combining the rapidity of Shift-Add and the accuracy of speckle masking, this paper proposes a novel reconstruction algorithm-NASIR (Non-rigid Alignment based Solar Image Reconstruction). NASIR reconstructs the phase of the object image at each frequency by building a computational model between geometric distortion and intensity distribution and reconstructs the modulus of the object image on the aligned speckle images by speckle interferometry. We analyzed the performance of NASIR by using the correlation coefficient, power spectrum, and coefficient of variation of intensity profile (CVoIP) in processing data obtained by the NVST (1m New Vacuum Solar Telescope). The reconstruction experiments and analysis results show that the quality of images reconstructed by NASIR is close to speckle masking when the seeing is good, while NASIR has excellent robustness when the seeing condition becomes worse. Furthermore, NASIR reconstructs the entire field of view in parallel in one go, without phase recursion and block-by-block reconstruction, so its computation time is less than half that of speckle masking. Therefore, we consider NASIR is a robust and high-quality fast reconstruction method that can serve as an effective tool for data filtering and quick look.

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arXiv2021

Magnetic reconnection between loops accelerated by a nearby filament eruption

Magnetic reconnection modulated by non-local disturbances in the solar atmosphere has been investigated theoretically, but rarely observed. In this study, employing Ha and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images and line of sight magnetograms, we report acceleration of reconnection by adjacent filament eruption. In Ha images, four groups of chromospheric fibrils are observed to form a saddle-like structure. Among them, two groups of fibrils converge and reconnect. Two newly reconnected fibrils then form, and retract away from the reconnection region. In EUV images, similar structures and evolution of coronal loops are identified. Current sheet forms repeatedly at the interface of reconnecting loops, with width and length of 1-2 and 5.3-7.2 Mm, and reconnection rate of 0.18-0.3. It appears in the EUV low-temperature channels, with average differential emission measure (DEM) weighed temperature and EM of 2 MK and 2.5*10^27 cm-5. Plasmoids appear in the current sheet and propagate along it, and then further along the reconnection loops. The filament, located at the southeast of reconnection region, erupts, and pushes away the loops covering the reconnection region. Thereafter, the current sheet has width and length of 2 and 3.5 Mm, and reconnection rate of 0.57. It becomes much brighter, and appears in the EUV high-temperature channels, with average DEM-weighed temperature and EM of 5.5 MK and 1.7*10^28 cm-5. In the current sheet, more hotter plasmoids form. More thermal and kinetic energy is hence converted. These results suggest that the reconnection is significantly accelerated by the propagating disturbance caused by the nearby filament eruption.

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arXiv2019

The dynamics of AR 12700 in its early emerging phase II: fan-shaped activities relevant to arch filament systems

The emergence of active regions (ARs) closely relates to the solar dynamo and the dynamical atmospheric phenomena.With high-resolution and long-lasting observations from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope, we report a new dynamic activity phenomenon named "fan-shaped activity (FSA)" in the emerging phase of NOAA AR 12700. The FSAs are clearly observed at Ha wavelength and are closely related to the dynamics of the adjacent arch filament system (AFS), including threads deformation and materials downward motions. On 2018 February 26, the two most representative FSAs appeared around 05:21 UT and 06:03 UT, respectively, and they firstly ascended and then decayed in around 10 minutes. At the ascending phase, accompanied by the uplifting of an adjacent AFS, each FSA launches up at one end of the AFS and extends for up to 11 Mm. At the decaying phase, the FSA gradually vanishes, and materials downflows towards the other end of the AFS are detected. After checking the evolution of the magnetic fields of AR 12700, we find that each FSA is located between the end of an AFS and an adjacent magnetic patch with the same polarity and launches at the onset of the collision and compression between these two magnetic patches. We propose that the collision lifts up the AFS, and then the initially compact AFS laterally expands, resulting in the formation of FSA. A cartoon model is proposed to depict the activities.

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arXiv2019

Chromospheric cannonballs on the Sun

In the highly dynamic chromosphere, there exist many kinds of small-scale activities, such as spicules, surges, and Ellerman bombs. Here, we report the discovery of a new phenomenon in the chromosphere observed with the New Vacuum Solar Telescope at the Fuxian Solar Observatory. In the high tempo-spatial resolution H$α$ images, some dark or bright structures are found to fly along the curved trajectory, looking like cannonballs. Their average size, mass, and velocity are about 1.5 $\times$ 10$^{9}$ km$^{3}$, 1.5 $\times$ 10$^{8}$ kg, and 56 km s$^{-1}$, respectively. In the simultaneous (extreme-)ultraviolet images obtained by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, these cannonballs appear as brighter features compared to the surrounding area, implying that there exists some kind of heating during this process. The photospheric magnetograms show the magnetic flux emergence and interaction with the pre-existing fields. These observations reveal that the cannonballs are chromospheric material blobs launched due to the magnetic reconnection between emerging magnetic flux and the pre-existing loops.

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arXiv2017

Precise Reduction of Solar Spectra Observed by the 1-meter New Vacuum Solar Telescope

We present a precise and complete procedure for processing spectral data observed by the 1-meter New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST). The procedure is suitable for both the sit-and-stare and raster-scan spectra. In this work, the geometric distortions of the spectra are firstly corrected for subsequent processes. Then, considering the temporal changes and the remnants of spectral lines in the flat-field, the original flat-field matrix is split into four independent components for ensuring a high precision flat-fielding correction, consisting of the continuum gradient matrix, slit non-uniform matrix, CCD dust matrix, and interference fringe matrix. Subsequently, the spectral line drifts and intensity fluctuations of the science data are further corrected. After precise reduction with this procedure, the measuring accuracies of the Doppler velocities for different spectral lines and of the oscillation curves of the chromosphere and photosphere are measured. The results show that the highest measuring accuracy of the Doppler velocity is within 100 ms-1, which indicates that the characteristics of the photosphere and chromosphere can be studied co-spatially and co-temporally with the reduced spectra of NVST.

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arXiv2017

Interaction of Two Active Region Filaments Observed by NVST and SDO

Using high spatial and temporal resolution H$α$ data from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) and simultaneous observations from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), we present a rare event on the interaction between two filaments (F1 and F2) in AR 11967 on 2014 January 31. The adjacent two filaments were almost perpendicular to each other. Their interaction was driven by the movement of F1 and started when the two filaments collided with each other. During the interaction, the threads of F1 continuously slipped from the northeast to the southwest, accompanied by the brightenings at the junction of two filaments and the northeast footpoint of F2. Part of F1 and the main body of F2 became invisible in H$α$ wavelength due to the heating and the motion of F2. At the same time, bright material initiated from the junction of two filaments were observed to move along F1. The magnetic connectivities of F1 were found to be changed after their interaction. These observations suggest that magnetic reconnection was involved in the interaction of two filaments and resulted in the eruption of one filament.

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arXiv2017

Objective Image Quality Assessment for High Resolution Photospheric Images by Median Filter Gradient Similarity

All next generation ground-based and space-based solar telescopes require a good quality assessment metric in order to evaluate their imaging performance. In this paper, a new image quality metric, the median filter gradient similarity (MFGS) is proposed for photospheric images. MFGS is a no-reference/blind objective image quality metric (IQM) by a measurement result between 0 and 1 and has been performed on short-exposure photospheric images captured by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) of the Fuxian Solar Observatory and by the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) onboard the Hinode satellite, respectively. The results show that: (1)the measured value of MFGS changes monotonically from 1 to 0 with degradation of image quality; (2)there exists a linear correlation between the measured values of MFGS and root-mean-square-contrast (RMS-contrast) of granulation; (3)MFGS is less affected by the image contents than the granular RMS-contrast. Overall, MFGS is a good alternative for the quality assessment of photospheric images.

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arXiv2016

Oscillation of Newly Formed Loops After Magnetic Reconnection in the Solar Chromosphere

With the high spatial and temporal resolution H$α$ images from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope, we focus on two groups of loops with a X-shaped configuration in the dynamic chromosphere. We find that the anti-directed loops approach each other and reconnect continually. The connectivity of the loops is changed and new loops are formed and stack together. The stacked loops are sharply bent, implying that they are greatly impacted by the magnetic tension force. When another more reconnection process takes place, one new loop is formed and stacks with the previously formed ones. Meanwhile, the stacked loops retract suddenly and move toward the balance position, performing an overshoot movement, which led to an oscillation with an average period of about 45 s. The oscillation of newly formed loops after magnetic reconnection in the chromosphere is observed for the first time. We suggest that the stability of the stacked loops is destroyed due to the join of the last new loop and then suddenly retract under the effect of magnetic tension. Because of the retraction, another lower loop is pushed outward and performs an oscillation with the period of about 25 s. The different oscillation periods may be due to their difference in three parameters, i.e., loop length, plasma density, and magnetic field strength.

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arXiv2015

Oscillating light wall above a sunspot light bridge

With the high tempo-spatial \emph{Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph} 1330 Å images, we find that many bright structures are rooted in the light bridge of NOAA 12192, forming a \emph{light wall}. The light wall is brighter than the surrounding areas, and the wall top is much brighter than the wall body. The New Vacuum Solar Telescope H$α$ and the \emph{Solar Dynamics Observatory} 171 Å and 131 Å images are also used to study the light wall properties. In 1330 Å, 171 Å, and 131 Å, the top of the wall has a higher emission, while in the H$α$ line, the wall top emission is very low. The wall body corresponds to bright areas in 1330 Å and dark areas in the other lines. The top of the light wall moves upward and downward successively, performing oscillations in height. The deprojected mean height, amplitude, oscillation velocity, and the dominant period are determined to be 3.6 Mm, 0.9 Mm, 15.4 km s$^{-1}$, and 3.9 min, respectively. We interpret the oscillations of the light wall as the leakage of \emph{p}-modes from below the photosphere. The constant brightness enhancement of the wall top implies the existence of some kind of atmospheric heating, e.g., via the persistent small-scale reconnection or the magneto-acoustic waves. In another series of 1330 Å images, we find that the wall top in the upward motion phase is significantly brighter than in the downward phase. This kind of oscillations may be powered by the energy released due to intermittent impulsive magnetic reconnection.

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arXiv2015

Partial eruption of a filament with twisting nonuniform fields

The eruption of the filament with the kink fashion is often regarded as a signature of the kink instability. However, the kink instability threshold for the filament magnetic structure has been not widely understood. Using the H-alpha observation from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST), we present a partial eruptive filament. In the eruption, a filament thread appeared to split from the middle portion of the filament and to break out in a kinklike fashion. During this period, the left filament material remained below, which erupted without the kinking motion later on. The coronal magnetic field lines associated with the filament are obtained from the nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolations using the 12 minutes cadence vector magnetograms of the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO). We studied the extrapolated field lines passing through the magnetic dips that are in good agreement with the observed filament. The field lines are non-uniformly twisted and appear to be made up by two twisted flux ropes winding about each other. One of them has higher twist than the other, and the highly twisted one has its dips aligned with the kinking eruptive thread at the beginning of its eruption. Before the eruption, moreover, the highly twisted flux rope was found to expand with the approximately constant field twist. In addition, the helicity flux maps deduced from the HMI magnetograms show that some helicity is injected into the overlying magnetic arcade, but no significant helicity is injected into the flux ropes. Accordingly, we suggest that the highly twisted flux rope became kink unstable when the instability threshold declined with the expansion of the flux rope.

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arXiv2014

Magnetic reconnection between small-scale loops observed with the New Vacuum Solar Telescope

Using the high tempo-spatial resolution H$α$ images observed with the New Vacuum Solar Telescope, we report the solid observational evidence of magnetic reconnection between two sets of small-scale anti-parallel loops with an X-shaped topology. The reconnection process contains two steps: a slow step with the duration of more than several tens of minutes, and a rapid step lasting for only about three minutes. During the slow reconnection, two sets of anti-parallel loops reconnect gradually, and new loops are formed and stacked together. During the rapid reconnection, the anti-parallel loops approach each other quickly, and then the rapid reconnection takes place, resulting in the disappearance of former loops. In the meantime, new loops are formed and separate. The region between the approaching loops is brightened, and the thickness and length of this region are determined to be about 420 km and 1.4 Mm, respectively. During the rapid reconnection process, obvious brightenings at the reconnection site and apparent material ejections outward along reconnected loops are observed. These observed signatures are consistent with predictions by reconnection models. We suggest that the successive slow reconnection changes the conditions around the reconnection site and triggers instabilities, thus leading to the rapid approach of the anti-parallel loops and resulting in the rapid reconnection.

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arXiv2014

Fine Structures and Overlying Loops of Confined Solar Flares

Using the H$α$ observations from the New Vacuum Solar Telescope at Fuxian Solar Observatory, we focus on the fine structures of three confined flares and the issue why all the three flares are confined instead of eruptive. All the three confined flares take place successively at the same location and have similar morphologies, so can be termed homologous confined flares. In the simultaneous images obtained by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, many large-scale coronal loops above the confined flares are clearly observed in multi-wavelengths. At the pre-flare stage, two dipoles emerge near the negative sunspot, and the dipolar patches are connected by small loops appearing as arch-shaped H$α$ fibrils. There exists a reconnection between the small loops, and thus the H$α$ fibrils change their configuration. The reconnection also occurs between a set of emerging H$α$ fibrils and a set of pre-existing large loops, which are rooted in the negative sunspot, a nearby positive patch, and some remote positive faculae, forming a typical three-legged structure. During the flare processes, the overlying loops, some of which are tracked by activated dark materials, do not break out. These direct observations may illustrate the physical mechanism of confined flares, i.e., magnetic reconnection between the emerging loops and the pre-existing loops triggers flares and the overlying loops prevent the flares from being eruptive.

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