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Yun-Wei Yu

Publications and source records attributed to Yun-Wei Yu.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
arXiv2015

Reverse Shock Emission and Ionization Break Out Powered by Post-merger Millisecond Magnetars

There is accumulating evidence that at least a fraction of binary neutron star mergers result in rapidly spinning magnetars, with subrelativistic neutron-rich ejecta as massive as a small fraction of solar mass. The ejecta could be heated continuously by the Poynting flux emanated from the central magnetars. Such Poynting flux could become lepton-dominated so that a reverse shock develops. It was demonstrated that such a picture is capable of accounting for the optical transient PTF11agg (Wang & Dai 2013b). In this paper we investigate the X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) radiation as well as the optical and radio radiation studied by Wang & Dai (2013b). UV emission is particularly important because it has the right energy to ionize the hot ejecta at times $t\lesssim 600$ s. It is thought that the ejecta of binary neutron star mergers are a remarkably pure sample of r-process material, about which our understanding is still incomplete. In this paper we evaluate the possibility of observationally determining the bound-bound and bound-free opacities of the r-process material by timing the X-ray, UV, and optical radiation. It is found that these timings depend on the opacities weakly and therefore only loose constraints on the opacities can be obtained.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2014

Revisiting the dispersion measure of fast radio bursts associated with gamma-ray burst afterglows

Some fast radio bursts (FRBs) are expected to be associated with the afterglow emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), while a short-lived, supermassive neutron star (NS) forms during the GRBs. I investigate the possible contributions to the dispersion measure (DM) of the FRBs from the GRB ejecta and the wind blown from the precollapsing NS. On the one hand, sometimes an internal X-ray plateau afterglow could be produced by the NS wind, which indicates that a great number of electron-positron pairs are carried by the wind. If the pair-generation radius satisfies a somewhat rigorous condition, the relativistic and dense wind would contribute a high DM to the associated FRB, which can be comparable to and even exceed the DM contributed by the intergalactic medium. On the other hand, if the wind only carries a Goldreich-Julian particle flux, its DM contribution would become negligible; meanwhile, the internal plateau afterglow would not appear. Alternatively, the FRB should be associated with a GRB afterglow produced by the GRB external shock, i.e., an energy-injection-caused shallow-decay afterglow or a normal single-power-law afterglow if the impulsive energy release of the GRB is high enough. In the latter case, the DM contributed by the high-mass GRB ejecta could be substantially important, in particular, for an environment of main-sequence stellar wind. In summary, a careful assessment on the various DM contributors could be required for the cosmological application of the expected FRB-GRB association. The future DM measurements of GRB-associated FRBs could provide a constraint on the physics of NS winds.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2014

Implications of fast radio bursts for superconducting cosmic strings

Highly beamed, short-duration electromagnetic bursts could be produced by superconducting cosmic string (SCS) loops oscillating in cosmic magnetic fields. We demonstrated that the basic characteristics of SCS bursts such as the electromagnetic frequency and the energy release could be consistently exhibited in the recently discovered fast radio bursts (FRBs). Moreover, it is first showed that the redshift distribution of the FRBs can also be well accounted for by the SCS burst model. Such agreements between the FRBs and SCS bursts suggest that the FRBs could originate from SCS bursts and thus they could provide an effective probe to study SCSs. The obtained values of model parameters indicate that the loops generating the FRBs have a small length scale and they are mostly formed in the radiation-dominated cosmological epoch.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2014

How can newly born rapidly rotating neutron stars become magnetars?

In a newly born (high-temperature and Keplerian rotating) neutron star, r-mode instability can lead to stellar differential rotation, which winds the seed poloidal magnetic field ($\sim 10^{11}$ G) to generate an ultra-high ($\sim 10^{17}$ G) toroidal field component. Subsequently, by succumbing to the Tayler instability, the toroidal field could be partially transformed into a new poloidal field. Through such dynamo processes, the newly born neutron star with sufficiently rapid rotation could become a magnetar on a timescale of $\sim 10^{2-3}$ s, with a surface dipolar magnetic field of $\sim10^{15}$ G. Accompanying the field amplification, the star could spin down to a period of $\sim5$ ms through gravitational wave radiation due to the r-mode instability and, in particular, the non-axisymmetric stellar deformation caused by the toroidal field. This scenario provides a possible explanation for why the remnant neutron stars formed in gamma-ray bursts and superluminous supernovae could be millisecond magnetars.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2013

A supra-massive magnetar central engine for short GRB 130603B

We show that the peculiar early optical and in particular X-ray afterglow emission of the short duration burst GRB 130603B can be explained by continuous energy injection into the blastwave from a supra-massive magnetar central engine. The observed energetics and temporal/spectral properties of the late infrared bump (i.e., the "kilonova") are also found consistent with emission from the ejecta launched during an NS-NS merger and powered by a magnetar central engine. The isotropic-equivalent kinetic energies of both the GRB blastwave and the kilonova are about $E_{\rm k}\sim 10^{51}$ erg, consistent with being powered by a near-isotropic magnetar wind. However, this relatively small value demands that most of the initial rotational energy of the magnetar $(\sim {\rm a~ few \times 10^{52}~ erg})$ is carried away by gravitational wave radiation. Our results suggest that (i) the progenitor of GRB 130603B would be a NS-NS binary system, whose merger product would be a supra-massive neutron star that lasted for about $\sim 1000$ seconds; (ii) the equation-of-state of nuclear matter would be stiff enough to allow survival of a long-lived supra-massive neutron star, so that it is promising to detect bright electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave triggers without short GRB associations in the upcoming Advanced LIGO/Virgo era.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2013

Determining the luminosity function of Swift long gamma-ray bursts with pseudo-redshifts

The determination of luminosity function (LF) of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is of an important role for the cosmological applications of the GRBs, which is however hindered seriously by some selection effects due to redshift measurements. In order to avoid these selection effects, we suggest to calculate pseudo-redshifts for Swift GRBs according to the empirical L-E_p relationship. Here, such a $L-E_p$ relationship is determined by reconciling the distributions of pseudo- and real redshifts of redshift-known GRBs. The values of E_p taken from Butler's GRB catalog are estimated with Bayesian statistics rather than observed. Using the GRB sample with pseudo-redshifts of a relatively large number, we fit the redshift-resolved luminosity distributions of the GRBs with a broken-power-law LF. The fitting results suggest that the LF could evolve with redshift by a redshift-dependent break luminosity, e.g., L_b=1.2\times10^{51}(1+z)^2\rm erg s^{-1}. The low- and high-luminosity indices are constrained to 0.8 and 2.0, respectively. It is found that the proportional coefficient between GRB event rate and star formation rate should correspondingly decrease with increasing redshifts.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2013

Bright "merger-nova" from the remnant of a neutron star binary merger: A signature of a newly born, massive, millisecond magnetar

A massive millisecond magnetar may survive a merger of a neutron star (NS) binary, which would continuously power the merger ejecta. We develop a generic dynamic model for the merger ejecta with energy injection from the central magnetar. The ejecta emission (the "merger-nova") powered by the magnetar peaks in the UV band and the peak of lightcurve progressively shifts to an earlier epoch with increasing frequency. A magnetar-powered mergernova could have an optical peak brightness comparable to a supernova, which is a few tens or hundreds times brighter than the radioactive-powered merger-novae (the so-called macro-nova or kilo-nova). On the other hand, such a merger-nova would peak earlier and have a significantly shorter duration than that of a supernova. An early collapse of the magnetar could suppress the brightness of the optical emission and shorten its duration. Such millisecond-magnetar-powered merger-novae may be detected from NS-NS merger events without an observed short gamma-ray burst, and could be a bright electromagnetic counterpart for gravitational wave bursts due to NS-NS mergers. If detected, it suggests that the merger leaves behind a massive NS, which has important implications for the equation-of-state of nuclear matter.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2013

Implications of the cosmic infrared background excess for the cosmic star formation

By phenomenologically describing the high-redshift star formation history, i.e., $\dotρ_{*}(z)\propto[(1+z)/4.5]^{-α}$, and semi-analytically calculating the fractions of high-redshift Pop I/II and Pop III stars, we investigate the contributions from both high-redshfit Pop I/II and Pop III stars to the observed near-infrared ($3 μ\rm m<λ<5 μm$) excess in the cosmic infrared background emission. In order to account for the observational level of the near-infrared excess, the power-law index $α$ of the assumed star formation history is constrained to within the range of $0\lesssimα\lesssim1$. Such a constraint is obtained under the condition that the virial temperature of dark matter halos belongs to the range of $500 {\rm K}\leq T_{\rm vir}\leq10^4$ K.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2013

A statistical classification of the unassociated gamma-ray sources in the second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog

With assistance of the identified/associated sources in the second Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) catalog, we analyze and resolve the spatial distribution and the distributions of the gamma-ray spectral and variability indices of the remaining 575 unassociated Fermi LAT sources. Consequently, it is suggested that the unassociated sources could statistically consist of Galactic supernova remnants/pulsar wind nebulae, BL Lacertae objects, flat spectrum radio quasars, and other types of active galaxies with fractions of 25%, 29%, 41%, and 5%, respectively.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2013

Could strange stars be in the color-flavor-locked phase: Tested by their thermal evolutions

The thermal evolution of strange stars in both normal and color-flavor-locked (CFL) phases are investigated together with the evolutions of the stellar rotation and the r-mode instability. The heating effects due to the deconfinement transition of the stellar crust and the dissipation of the r-modes are considered. As a result, the cooling of the stars in the normal phase is found to be not very different from the standard one. In contrast, for the stars in the CFL phase, a big bump during the first hundred years and a steep decay ($\sim$7% in ten years) at the ages of $\sim10^{4-6}$ yrs are predicted in their thermal evolution curves. These unique features provide an effective observational test for determining whether or not the CFL phase is reached in strange stars. This thermal test method is independent of and complementary to the rotational test method, which is a direct consequence of the r-mode instability.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2012

Cosmic histories of star formation and reionization: An analysis with a power-law approximation

With a simple power-law approximation of high-redshift ($\gtrsim3.5$) star formation history, i.e., $\dotρ_*(z)\propto [(1+z)/4.5]^{-α}$, we investigate the reionization of intergalactic medium (IGM) and the consequent Thomson scattering optical depth for cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons. A constraint on the evolution index $α$ is derived from the CMB optical depth measured by the {\it Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe} (WMAP) experiment, which reads $α\approx2.18\lg{\mathscr{N}_γ}-3.89$, where the free parameter $\mathscr{N}_γ$ is the number of the escaped ionizing ultraviolet photons per baryon. Moreover, the redshift for full reionization, $z_f$, can also be expressed as a function of $α$ as well as $\mathscr{N}_γ$. By further taking into account the implication of the Gunn-Peterson trough observations to quasars for the full reionization redshift, i.e., $6\lesssim z_f \lesssim7$, we obtain $0.3\lesssimα\lesssim1.3$ and $80\lesssim\mathscr{N}_γ\lesssim230$. For a typical number of $\sim4000$ of ionizing photons released per baryon of normal stars, the fraction of these photons escaping from the stars, $f_{\rm esc}$, can be constrained to within the range of $(2.0-5.8)%$.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2011

The luminosity function of Swift long gamma-ray bursts

The accumulation of {\it Swift} observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) gradually makes it possible to directly derive a GRB luminosity function (LF) from observational luminosity distribution, where however two complexities must be involved as (i) the evolving connection between GRB rate and cosmic star formation rate and (ii) observational selection effects due to telescope thresholds and redshift measurements. With a phenomenological investigation on these two complexities, we constrain and discriminate two popular competitive LF models (i.e., broke-power-law LF and single-power-law LF with an exponential cutoff at low luminosities). As a result, we find that the broken-power-law LF could be more favored by the observation, with a break luminosity $L_b=2.5\times10^{52}\rm erg s^{-1}$ and prior- and post-break indices $ν_1=1.72$ and $ν_2=1.98$. For an extra evolution effect expressed by a factor $(1+z)^δ$, if the matallicity of GRB progenitors is lower than $\sim0.1Z_{\odot}$ as expected by some collapsar models, then there may be no extra evolution effect other than the metallicity evolution (i.e., $δ$ approaches to be zero). Alternatively, if we remove the theoretical metallicity requirement, then a relationship between the degenerate parameters $δ$ and $Z_{\max}$ can be found, very roughly, $δ\sim2.4(Z_{\max}/Z_{\odot}-0.06)$. This indicates that an extra evolution could become necessary for relatively high metallicities.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2010

A past capture event at Sagittarius A* inferred from the fluorescent X-ray emission of Sagittarius B clouds

The fluorescent X-ray emission from neutral iron in the molecular clouds (Sgr B) indicates that the clouds are being irradiated by an external X-ray source. The source is probably associated with the Galactic central black hole (Sgr A*), which triggered a bright outburst one hundred years ago. We suggest that such an outburst could be due to a partial capture of a star by Sgr A*, during which a jet was generated. By constraining the observed flux and the time variability ($\sim$ 10 years) of the Sgr B's fluorescent emission, we find that the shock produced by the interaction of the jet with the dense interstellar medium represents a plausible candidate for the X-ray source emission.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2010

The termination shock of a magnetar wind: a possible origin of gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglow emission

Context: Swift observations suggest that the X-ray afterglow emission of some gamma-ray bursts (GRB) may have internal origins, and the conventional external shock (ES) cannot be the exclusive source of the afterglow emission. Aims: If the central compact objects of some GRBs are millisecond magentars, the magnetar winds could play an important role in the (internal) X-ray afterglow emission, which is our focus here. Methods: The dynamics and the synchrotron radiation of the termination shock (TS) of the magmnetar winds, as well as the simultaneous GRB ES, are investigated by considering the magnetization of the winds. Results: As a result of the competition between the emission of the wind TS and the GRB ES, two basic types of X-ray afterglows are predicted, i.e., the TS-dominated and the ES-dominated types. Moreover, our results also show that both of the two types of afterglows have a shallow-decay phase and a normal-decay one, as observed by the \textit{Swift} satellite. This indicates that some observed X-ray afterglows could be (internally) produced by the magnetar winds, but not necessarily GRB ESs.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2010

High Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts: Observational Signatures of Superconducting Cosmic Strings?

The high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), GRBs 080913 and 090423, challenge the conventional GRB progenitor models by their short durations, typical for short GRBs, and their high energy releases, typical for long GRBs. Meanwhile, the GRB rate inferred from high-redshift GRBs also remarkably exceeds the prediction of the collapsar model, with an ordinary star formation history. We show that all these contradictions could be eliminated naturally, if we ascribe some high-redshift GRBs to electromagnetic bursts of superconducting cosmic strings. High-redshift GRBs could become a reasonable way to test the superconducting cosmic string model, because the event rate of cosmic string bursts increases rapidly with increasing redshifts, whereas the collapsar rate decreases.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2010

The role of newly born magnetars in gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglow emission: Energy injection and internal emission

Swift observations suggest that the central compact objects of some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could be newly born millisecond magnetars. Therefore, by considering the spin evolution of the magnetars against r-mode instability, we investigate the role of the magnetars in GRB X-ray afterglow emission. Besides modifying the conventional energy injection model, we pay particular attention to the internal X-ray afterglow emission, whose luminosity is assumed to track the magnetic dipole luminosity of the magentars with a certain fraction. Following a comparison between the model and some selected observational samples, we suggest that some so-called "canonical" X-ray afterglows including the shallow decay, normal decay, and steeper-than-normal decay phases could be internally produced by the magnetars (possibly through some internal dissipations of the magnetar winds), while the (energized) external shocks are associated with another type of X-ray afterglows. If this is true, from those internal X-ray afterglows, we can further determine the magnetic field strengths and the initial spin periods of the corresponding magnetars.

astro-ph.HE↗
arXiv2009

The role of $r$-mode damping in the thermal evolution of neutron stars

The thermal evolution of neutron stars (NSs) is investigated by coupling with the evolution of $\textit{r}$-mode instability that is described by a second order model.The heating effect due to shear viscous damping of the $\textit{r}$-modes enables us to understand the high temperature of two young pulsars (i.e., PSR B0531+21 and RX J0822-4300) in the framework of the simple $npe$ NS model, without superfluidity or exotic particles.Moreover, the light curves predicted by the model within an acceptable parameter regime may probably cover all of the young and middle-aged pulsars in the $\lg T_s^{\infty}-\lg t$ panel, and an artificially strong $p$ superfluidity invoked in some early works is not needed here. Additionally, by considering the radiative viscous damping of the $\textit{r}$-modes, a surprising extra cooling effect is found, which can even exceed the heating effect sometimes although plays an ignorable role in the thermal history.

astro-ph.HE↗