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Migration commonly occurs during the epoch of planet formation. For emerging gas giant planets, it proceeds concurrently with their growth through the accretion of gas from their natal protoplanetary disks. Similar migration process should also be applied to the stellar-mass black holes embedded in active galactic nucleus disks. In this work, we perform high resolution 3D and 2D numerical hydrodynamical simulations to study the migration dynamics for accreting embedded objects over the disk viscous timescales in a self-consistent manner. We find that an accreting planet embedded in a predominantly viscous disk has a tendency to migrate outward, in contrast to the inward orbital decay of non-accreting planets. 3D and 2D simulations find the consistent outward migration results for the accreting planets. Under this circumstance, the accreting planet's outward migration is mainly due to the asymmetric spiral arms feeding from the global disk into the Hill radius. This is analogous to the unsaturated corotation torque although the imbalance is due to material accretion within the libration timescale rather than diffusion onto the inner disk. In a disk with a relatively small viscosity, the accreting planets clear deep gaps near their orbits. The tendency of inward migration is recovered, albeit with suppressed rates. By performing a parameter survey with a range of disks' viscosity, we find that the transition from outward to inward migration occurs with the effective viscous efficiency factor $\alpha\sim 0.003$ for Jupiter-mass planets., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, Accepted by ApJ

Quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) are intense repeating soft X-ray bursts with recurrence times about a few to ten hours from nearby galactic nuclei. The origin of QPEs is still unclear. In this work, we investigated the extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI) + accretion disk model, where the disk is formed from a previous tidal disruption event (TDE). In this EMRI+TDE disk model, the QPEs are the result of collisions between a TDE disk and a stellar mass object (a stellar mass black hole or a main sequence star) orbiting around a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in galactic nuclei. If this interpretation is correct, QPEs will be invaluable in probing the orbits of stellar mass objects in the vicinity of SMBHs, and further inferring the formation of EMRIs which are one of the primary targets of spaceborne gravitational wave missions. Taking GSN 069 as an example, we find the EMRI wherein is of low eccentricity ($e<0.1$ at 3-$\sigma$ confidence level) and semi-major axis about $O(10^2)$ gravitational radii of the central SMBH, which is consistent with the prediction of the wet EMRI formation channel, while incompatible with alternatives., Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures

Studying a centi-parsec supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) would allow us to explore a new parameter space in active galactic nuclei, and these objects are also potential sources of gravitational waves. We report evidence that an SMBHB with an orbital period of about 30 yr may be resident in the nearby galactic nucleus M81. This orbital period and the known mass of M81 imply an orbital separation of about 0.02 pc. The jet emanating from the primary black hole showed a short period of jet wobbling at about 16.7 yr, superposing a long-term precession at a timescale of several hundred years. Periodic radio and X-ray outbursts were also found two times per orbital period, which could be explained by a double-peaked mass accretion rate variation per binary orbit. If confirmed, M81 would be one of the closest SMBHB candidates, providing a rare opportunity to study the final parsec problem., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, published in the ApJ

Through very long baseline interferometry observations of one of the closest low-luminosity active galactic nuclei M81* at multifrequencies of 8.8, 22 and 44GHz, a bright discrete knot with an unusual low apparent speed $\sim$0.1c was detected. Combining with the contemporary monitoring of X-rays data at 2-10keV, it indicates that a moderate X-ray flare happened when the knot launched from the core region. Three possible origins of the knot are proposed to explain our observational results. They are an episodic jet ejection, a low-speed shock wave, and a possible secondary black hole in a binary system, respectively. Future intensive multiwavelength monitoring can help to understand the discrete knot as well as the central black hole better.

We perform a series of 3D simulations to study the accretion of giant planet embedded in protoplanetary discs (PPDs) over gap-opening timescales. We find that the accretion mass flux mainly comes from the intermediate latitude above the disc midplane. The circumplanetary disc (CPD) for a super-thermal planet is rotation-supported up to $\sim$20-30\% of the planet Hill radius. While both mass inflow and outflow exists in the CPD midplane, the overall trend is an outflow that forms a meridional circulation with high-latitude inflows. We confirm the absence of accretion outburst from disc eccentricity excited by massive planets in our 3D simulations, contrary to the consensus of previous 2D simulations. This suggests the necessity of 3D simulations of accretion even for super-Jupiters. The accretion rates of planets measured in steady-state can be decomposed into the ``geometric" and ``density depletion" factors. Through extensive parameter survey, we identify a power-law scaling for the geometric factor $\propto q_{\rm th}^{2/3}$ for super-thermal planets ($q_{\rm th}$ being the thermal mass ratio), which transforms to $\propto q_{\rm th}^{2}$ for less massive cases. The density depletion factor is limited by the disc accretion rate for mildly super-thermal planets, and by gap-opening for highly super-thermal ones. Moderate planetary eccentricities can enhance the accretion rates by a factor of $2-3$ through making the gap shallower, but does not impact the flow geometry. We have applied our simulations results to accreting protoplanet system PDS 70 and can satisfactorily explain the accretion rate and CPD size in observations., Comment: 19 pages, 17 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

In this work, we study the dynamics of two less massive objects moving around a central massive object, which are all embedded within a thin accretion disc. In addition to the gravitational interaction between these objects, the disc-object interaction is also crucial for describing the long-term dynamics of the multi-body system, especially in the regime of mean-motion resonances. We point out that near the resonance the density waves generated by the two moving objects generally coherently interfere with each other, giving rise to extra angular momentum fluxes. The resulting backreaction on the objects is derived within the thin-disc scenario, which explicitly depends on the resonant angle and sensitively depends on the smoothing scheme used in the two-dimensional theory. We have performed hydrodynamical simulations with planets embedded within a thin accretion disc and have found qualitatively agreement on the signatures of interfering density waves by measuring the torques on the embedded objects. By including in interference torque and the migration torques in the evolution of a pair of planets, we show that the chance of resonance trapping depends on the sign of the interference torque. For negative torques the pairs are more likely located at off-resonance regimes. The negative torques may also explain the $1\%-2\%$ offset (for the period ratios) from the exact resonance values as observed in {\it Kepler} multi-planet systems., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, simulation results updated

High-resolution near infrared observations with GRAVITY instrument have revealed rapid orbital motions of a hot spot around Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole in our Galactic center, during its three bright flares. The projected distances of the spot to the black hole are measured and seems to increase with time. The values of distance, combined with the measured orbiting time, imply that the spot is rotating with a super-Keplerian velocity. These results are hard to understand if the spot stay within the accretion flow thus provide strong constraints on theoretical models for flares. Previously we have proposed a "ME" model for the flares by analogy with the coronal mass ejection model in solar physics. In that model, magnetic reconnection occurred at the surface of the accretion flow results in the formation of flux ropes, which are then ejected out. Energetic electrons accelerated in the current sheet flow into the flux rope region and their radiation is responsible for the flares. In this paper, we apply the model to the interpretation of the GRAVITY results by calculating the dynamics of the ejected flux rope, the evolution of the magnetic field and the energy distribution of accelerated electrons, and the radiation of the system. We find that the model can well explain the observed light curve of the flares, the time-dependent distance and the super-Keplerian motion of the hot spot. It also explains why the light curve of some flares have double peaks., Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRAS

RX J1301.9+2747 is a unique active galaxy with supersoft X-ray spectrum that lacks significant emission at energies above 2 keV. In addition, it is one of few galaxies displaying quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions that recur on a timescale of 13-20 ks. We present multi-epoch radio observations of RX J1301.9+2747 using GMRT, VLA and VLBA. The VLBA imaging at 1.6 GHz reveals a compact radio emission unresolved at a scale of <0.7 pc, with a brightness temperature of T_b>5x10^7 K. The radio emission is variable by more than a factor of 2.5 over a few days, based on the data taken from VLA monitoring campaigns. The short-term radio variability suggests that the radio emitting region has a size as small as 8x10^{-4} pc, resulting in an even higher brightness temperature of T_b ~10^{12} K. A similar limit on the source size can be obtained if the observed flux variability is not intrinsic and caused by the interstellar scintillation effect. The overall radio spectrum is steep with a time-averaged spectral index alpha=-0.78+/-0.03 between 0.89 GHz and 14 GHz. These observational properties rule out a thermal or star-formation origin of the radio emission, and appear to be consistent with the scenario of episodic jet ejections driven by magnetohydrodynamic process. Simultaneous radio and X-ray monitoring observations down to a cadence of hours are required to test whether the compact and variable radio emission is correlated with the quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

We propose to develop a wide-field and ultra-high-precision photometric survey mission, temporarily named "Earth 2.0 (ET)". This mission is designed to measure, for the first time, the occurrence rate and the orbital distributions of Earth-sized planets. ET consists of seven 30cm telescopes, to be launched to the Earth-Sun's L2 point. Six of these are transit telescopes with a field of view of 500 square degrees. Staring in the direction that encompasses the original Kepler field for four continuous years, this monitoring will return tens of thousands of transiting planets, including the elusive Earth twins orbiting solar-type stars. The seventh telescope is a 30cm microlensing telescope that will monitor an area of 4 square degrees toward the galactic bulge. This, combined with simultaneous ground-based KMTNet observations, will measure masses for hundreds of long-period and free-floating planets. Together, the transit and the microlensing telescopes will revolutionize our understandings of terrestrial planets across a large swath of orbital distances and free space. In addition, the survey data will also facilitate studies in the fields of asteroseismology, Galactic archeology, time-domain sciences, and black holes in binaries., Comment: 116 pages,79 figures

Spin evolution of stellar-mass Black Holes (sBHs) embedded in AGN accretion disks is an important process relevant to production of gravitaional waves from binary Black Hole (BBH) merger events through the AGN channel. Since embedded sBHs are surrounded by circum-stellar disks (CSDs), the rotation of CSD gas flows determine the direction of the angular momentum it accretes. In this Letter, we use global 2D hydrodynamic simulations to show that while a disk-embedded sBH on a circular orbit transforms the initial retrograde Keplerian shear of the background accretion disk into a prograde CSD flow, as in the classical picture of companion-disk interaction theory, moderate orbital eccentricity could disrupt the steady-state tidal perturbation and preserve a retrograde CSD flow around the sBH. This switch of CSD orientation occurs at a transition eccentricity that scales nearly proportional with local sound speed. This bifurcation in the CSD flow and thereafter spin-up direction of SBHs leads to formation of a population of nearly anti-aligned sBHs and should be incorporated in future population models of sBH and BBH evolutions., Comment: ApJL published

Binary black hole (BBH) mergers, particularly those with component masses in the pair-instability gap, may be produced by hierarchical mergers in the disks surrounding Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). While the interaction of an embedded BBH with an AGN disk is typically assumed to facilitate a merger, recent high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations challenge this assumption. However, these simulations often have simplified treatments for the gas thermodynamics. In this work, we model the possible consequence of various feedback from an embedded BBH with a simple model that maintains an enhanced temperature profile around each binary component. We show that when the minidisks around each BH become hotter than the background by a factor of three, the BBH orbital evolution switches from expansion to contraction. By analyzing the gravitational torque profile, we find that this change in direction is driven by a weakening of the minidisk spirals and their positive torque on the binary. Our results highlight the important role of thermodynamics around BBHs and its effect on their orbital evolution, suggesting that AGN disks could be efficient factories for BBH mergers., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, ApJL in press

In the recent years, three-dimensional (3D) high-temperature superconductors at ultrahigh pressure have been reported, typical examples are the polyhydrides H$_{3}$S, LaH$_{10}$, and YH$_{9}$, etc. To find high-temperature superconductors in two-dimensional (2D) at atmosphere pressure is another research hotspot. Here, we investigated the possible superconductivity in a hydrogenated monolayer phosphorus carbide based on first-principles calculations. The results reveal that monolayer PC$_{3}$ transforms from a semiconductor to a metal after hydrogenation. Interestingly, the C-$\pi$-bonding band contributes most to the states at the Fermi level. Based on the electron-phonon coupling mechanism, it is found that the electron-phonon coupling constant of HPC$_{3}$ is 0.95, which mainly origins from the coupling of C-$\pi$ electrons with the in-plane vibration modes of C and H. The calculated critical temperature $T_{c}$ is 31.0 K, which is higher than most of the 2D superconductors. By further applying biaxial tensile strain of 3$\%$, the $T_{c}$ can be boosted to 57.3 K, exceeding the McMillan limit. Thus, hydrogenation and strain are effective ways for increasing the superconducting $T_{c}$ of 2D materials.

The tidal perturbation of embedded protoplanets on their natal disks has been widely attributed to be the cause of gap-ring structures in sub-mm images of protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars. Numerical simulations of this process have been used to propose scalings of characteristic dust gap width/gap-ring distance with respect to planet mass. Applying such scalings to analyze observed gap samples yields a continuous mass distribution for a rich population of hypothetical planets in the range of several Earth to Jupiter masses. In contrast, the conventional core-accretion scenario of planet formation predicts a bi-modal mass function due to 1) the onset of runaway gas accretion above \sim20 Earth masses and 2) suppression of accretion induced by gap opening. Here we examine the dust disk response to the tidal perturbation of eccentric planets as a possible resolution of this paradox. Based on simulated gas and dust distributions, we show the gap-ring separation of Neptune-mass planets with small eccentricities might become comparable to that induced by Saturn-mass planets on circular orbits. This degeneracy may obliterate the discrepancy between the theoretical bi-modal mass distribution and the observed continuous gap width distribution. Despite damping due to planet-disk interaction, modest eccentricity may be sustained either in the outer regions of relatively thick disks or through resonant excitation among multiple super Earths. Moreover, the ring-like dust distribution induced by planets with small eccentricities is axisymmetric even in low viscosity environments, consistent with the paucity of vortices in ALMA images., Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, ApJ in press

We perform a series of high-resolution 2D hydrodynamical simulations of equal-mass binary black holes (BBHs) embedded in active galactic nucleus (AGN) accretion disks to study whether these binaries can be driven to merger by the surrounding gas. We find that the gravitational softening adopted for the BBH has a profound impact on this result. When the softening is less than ten percent of the binary separation, we show that, in agreement with recent simulations of isolated equal-mass binaries, prograde BBHs expand in time rather than contract. Eventually, however, the binary separation becomes large enough that the tidal force of the central AGN disrupts them. Only when the softening is relatively large do we find that prograde BBHs harden. We determine through detailed analysis of the binary torque, that this dichotomy is due to a loss of spiral structure in the circum-single disks orbiting each BH when the softening is a significant fraction of the binary separation. Properly resolving these spirals -- both with high resolution and small softening -- results in a significant source of binary angular momentum. Only for retrograde BBHs do we find consistent hardening, regardless of softening, as these BBHs lack the important spiral structure in their circum-single disks. This suggests that the gas-driven inspiral of retrograde binaries can produce a population of compact BBHs in the gravitational-wave-emitting regime in AGN disks, which may contribute a large fraction to the observed BBH mergers., Comment: accepted by ApJ, a new Table 2 is added

After protoplanets have acquired sufficient mass to open partial gaps in their natal protostellar disks, residual gas continues to diffuse onto horseshoe streamlines under effect of viscous dissipation, and meander in and out of the planets' Hill sphere. Within the Hill sphere, the horseshoe streamlines intercept gas flow in circumplanetary disks. The host stars' tidal perturbation induces a barrier across the converging streamlines' interface. Viscous transfer of angular momentum across this tidal barrier determines the rate of mass diffusion from the horseshoe streamlines onto the circumplanetary disks, and eventually the accretion rate onto the protoplanets. We carry out a series of numerical simulations to test the influence of this tidal barrier on super thermal planets. In weakly viscous disks, protoplanets' accretion rate steeply decreases with their masses above the thermal limit. As their growth timescale exceeds the gas depletion time scale, their masses reach asymptotic values comparable to that of Jupiter. In relatively thick and strongly viscous disks, protoplanets' asymptotic masses exceed several times that of Jupiter. Two dimensional numerical simulations show that such massive protoplanets strongly excite the eccentricity of nearby horseshoe streamlines, destabilize orderly flow, substantially enhance the diffusion rate across the tidal barrier, and elevate their growth rate until their natal disk is severely depleted. In contrast, eccentric streamlines remain stable in three dimensional simulations. Based on the upper falloff in the observe mass distribution of known exoplanets, we suggest their natal disks had relatively low viscosity alpha sim 0.001, modest thickness H/R sim 0.03 to 0.05, and limited masses comparable to that of minimum mass solar nebula model., Comment: Accepted by ApJ

The variability in multi-pulse gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may help to reveal the mechanism of underlying processes from the central engine. To investigate whether the self-organized criticality (SOC) phenomena exist in the prompt phase of GRBs, we statistically study the properties of GRBs with more than 3 pulses in each burst by fitting the distributions of several observed physical variables with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo approach, including the isotropic energy $E_{\rm iso}$, the duration time $T$ and the peak count rate $P$ of each pulse. Our sample consists of 454 pulses in 93 GRBs observed by the CGRO/BATSE satellite. The best-fitting values and uncertainties for these power-law indices of the differential frequency distributions are: $\alpha^d_{E}=1.54 \pm 0.09$, $\alpha^d_{T}=1.82_{-0.15}^{+0.14}$ and $\alpha^d_{P}=2.09_{-0.19}^{+0.18}$, while the power-law indices in the cumulative frequency distributions are: $\alpha^c_{E}=1.44_{-0.10}^{+0.08}$, $\alpha^c_{T}=1.75_{-0.13}^{+0.11}$ and $\alpha^c_{P}=1.99_{-0.19}^{+0.16}$. We find that these distributions are roughly consistent with the physical framework of a Fractal-Diffusive, Self-Organized Criticality (FD-SOC) system with the spatial dimension $S=3$ and the classical diffusion $\beta$=1. Our results support that the jet responsible for the GRBs should be magnetically dominated and magnetic instabilities (e.g., kink model, or tearing-model instability) lead the GRB emission region into the SOC state., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Frontiers of Physics (FrPhy)

During their formation, emerging protoplanets tidally interact with their natal disks. Proto-gas-giant planets, with Hills radius larger than the disk thickness, open gaps and quench gas flow in the vicinity of their orbits. It is usually assumed that their type II migration is coupled to the viscous evolution of the disk. Although this hypothesis provides an explanation for the origin of close-in planets, it also encounter predicament on the retention of long-period orbits for most gas giant planets. Moreover, numerical simulations indicate that planets migrations are not solely determined by the viscous diffusion of their natal disk. Here we carry out a series of hydrodynamic simulations combined with analytic studies to examine the transition between different paradigms of type II migration. We find a range of planetary mass for which gas continues to flow through a severely depleted gap so that the surface density distribution in the disk region beyond the gap is maintained in a quasi-steady state. The associated gap profile modifies the location of corotation \& Lindblad resonances. In the proximity of the planet's orbit, high-order Lindblad \& corotation torque are weakened by the gas depletion in the gap while low-order Lindblad torques near the gap walls preserves their magnitude. Consequently, the intrinsic surface density distribution of the disk determines delicately both pace and direction of planets' type II migration. We show that this effect might stall the inward migration of giant planets and preserve them in disk regions where the surface density is steep., Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, accepted by ApJ

The omnipresence of super-Earths suggests that they are able to be retained in natal disks around low-mass stars, whereas exoplanets' mass distribution indicates that some cores have transformed into gas giants through runaway gas accretion at 1AU from solar-type stars. In this paper, we show that transition to runaway gas accretion by cores may be self-impeded by an increase of the grain opacity in their envelope after they have acquired sufficient mass (typically 10Mearth) to enter a pebble-isolation phase. The accumulation of mm-m size pebbles in their migration barriers enhances their local fragmentation rates. The freshly produced sub-mm grains pass through the barrier, elevate the effective dust opacity and reduce the radiative flux in the cores envelope. These effects alone are adequate to suppress the transition to runaway accretion and preserve super-Earths in the stellar proximity (0.1 AU), albeit entropy advection between the envelope and the disk can further reduce the accretion rate. At intermediate distance (1AU) from their host stars, the escalation in the dust opacity dominates over entropy advection in stalling the transition to runaway accretion for marginally pebble-isolated cores. Beyond a few AU, the transformation of more massive cores to gas giants is reachable before severe depletion of disk gas. This requirement can be satisfied either in extended disks with large scale height via orderly accretion of migrating pebbles or through the mergers of oligarchic protoplanetary embryos, and can account for the correlated occurrence of long-period gas giants and close-in super-Earths., Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, accepted by ApJ

In this work, we study how the dust coagulation/fragmentation will influence the evolution and observational appearances of vortices induced by a massive planet embedded in a low viscosity disk by performing global 2D high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations. Within the vortex, due to its higher gas surface density and steeper pressure gradients, dust coagulation, fragmentation and drift (to the vortex center) are all quite efficient, producing dust particles ranging from micron to $\sim 1.0\ {\rm cm}$, as well as overall high dust-to-gas ratio (above unity). In addition, the dust size distribution is quite non-uniform inside the vortex, with the mass weighted average dust size at the vortex center ($\sim 4.0$ mm) being a factor of $\sim10$ larger than other vortex regions. Both large ($\sim$ mm) and small (tens of micron) particles contribute strongly to affect the gas motion within the vortex. As such, we find that the inclusion of dust coagulation has a significant impact on the vortex lifetime and the typical vortex lifetime is about 1000 orbits. After the initial gaseous vortex is destroyed, the dust spreads into a ring with a few remaining smaller gaseous vortices with a high dust concentration and a large maximum size ($\sim$ mm). At late time, the synthetic dust continuum images for the coagulation case show as a ring inlaid with several hot spots at 1.33 mm band, while only distinct hot spots remain at 7.0 mm., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJL, 10 pages, 5 figures

Tidal interactions between the embedded planets and their surrounding protoplanetary disks are often postulated to produce the observed complex dust substructures, including rings, gaps, and asymmetries. In this Letter, we explore the consequences of dust coagulation on the dust dynamics and ring morphology. Coagulation of dust grains leads to dust size growth which, under typical disk conditions, produces faster radial drifts, potentially threatening the dust ring formation. Utilizing 2D hydrodynamical simulations of protoplanetary disks which include a full treatment of dust coagulation, we find that if the planet does not open a gap quickly enough, the formation of an inner ring is impeded due to dust coagulation and subsequent radial drift. Furthermore, we find that a "buildup" of sub-mm sized grains often appears in the dust emission at the outer edge of the dust disk., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL on 21 December 2019

We investigate the impact of a highly eccentric 10 $M_{\rm \oplus}$ (where $M_{\rm \oplus}$ is the Earth mass) planet embedded in a dusty protoplanetary disk on the dust dynamics and its observational implications. By carrying out high-resolution 2D gas and dust two-fluid hydrodynamical simulations, we find that the planet's orbit can be circularized at large radii. After the planet's orbit is circularized, partial gap opening and dust ring formation happen close to the planet's circularization radius, which can explain the observed gaps/rings at the outer region of disks. When the disk mass and viscosity become low, we find that an eccentric planet can even open gaps and produce dust rings close to the pericenter and apocenter radii before its circularization. This offers alternative scenarios for explaining the observed dust rings and gaps in protoplanetary disks. A lower disk viscosity is favored to produce brighter rings in observations. An eccentric planet can also potentially slow down the dust radial drift in the outer region of the disk when the disk viscosity is low ($\alpha \lesssim2\times10^{-4}$) and the circularization is faster than the dust radial drift., Comment: 11 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ

Axion Like Particles (ALPs) are one promising kind of dark matter candidate particles that are predicted to couple with photons in the presence of magnetic fields. The oscillations between photons and ALPs travelling in the magnetic fields have been used to constrain ALP properties. In this work, we obtain some new constraints on the ALP mass $m_{\rm a}$ and the photon-ALP coupling constant $g$ with two different magnetic field models through TeV photons from PKS 2155-304. One is the discrete-$\varphi$ model that the magnetic field has the orientation angle $\varphi$ changes discretely and randomly from one coherent domain to the next, another is the linearly-continuous-$\varphi$ model that the magnetic field orientation angle $\varphi$ varies continuously across neighboring coherent domains. For the discrete-$\varphi$ model, we can obtain the best constraints on the ALP mass $m_{1}=m_{\rm a}/(1\ {\rm neV})=0.1$ and on the photon-ALP coupling constant $g_{11}=g/(10^{-11}\ {\rm GeV^{-1}})=5$, the reasonable range of the ALP mass $m_{1}$ is 0.08 $\thicksim$ 0.2 when $g_{11}$=5, and the only reasonable value of the photon-ALP coupling constant is $g_{11}$=5 when $m_{1}$=0.1. For the linearly-continuous-$\varphi$ model, we can obtain the best constraints on the ALP mass $m_{1}=0.1$ and on the photon-ALP coupling constant $g_{11}=0.7$, the reasonable range of the ALP mass $m_{1}$ is 0.05 $\thicksim$ 0.4 when $g_{11}$=0.7, and the reasonable range of the photon-ALP coupling constant $g_{11}$ is 0.5 $\thicksim$ 1 when $m_{1}$=0.1. All the results are consistent with the upper bound ($g<6.6\times10^{-11}\ {\rm GeV^{-1}}$, i.e. $g_{11}<6.6$) set by the CAST experiment., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures

The growth of solids from sub-micron to millimeter and centimeter sizes is the early step toward the formation of planets inside protoplanetary disks (PPDs). However, such processes and their potential impact on the later stages of solid growth are still poorly understood. In this work, we test the hypothesis that most disks contain at least one ringed structure with a relative small radius. We have carried out a large family of 1D two-fluid (gas+dust) hydrodynamical simulations by evolving the gas and dust motion self-consistently while allowing dust size to evolve via coagulation and fragmentation. We investigate the joint effects of ringed structures and dust size growth on the overall sub-millimeter and millimeter (mm) flux and spectral index of PPDs. Ringed structures slow down the dust radial drift and speed up the dust growth. In particular, we find that those unresolved disks with a high fragmentation velocity ($\sim10\ {\rm m~s^{-1}}$) and a high dust surface density ($\sim10\ {\rm g\ cm^{-2}}$ in the ring) can have mm spectral indices as low as $\sim2.0$, consistent with mm observations of faint disks in nearby star forming regions. Furthermore, disks with more than one ringed structure can potentially reproduce brighter disks with spectral indices lower than $\sim2.5$. Future multi-wavelength high-resolution observations of these low spectral index sources can be used to test the existence of the ringed structures in the unresolved disks and differentiate the effects of dust size growth from optical depth., Comment: 18 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ

Sgr A* represents a unique laboratory for the detailed study of accretion processes around a low-luminosity supermassive black hole (SMBH). Recent X-ray observations have allowed for spatially resolved modeling of the emission from the accretion flow around the SMBH, placing tight constraints on the flux and spectral shape of the accretion from the inner region with $r<10^3~r_g$, where $r_g$ is the gravitational radius of the black hole. We present here the first modeling of the multi-band spectral energy distribution (SED) of this inner region to better constrain the physical condition of the innermost accretion flow. Our modeling uses the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method to fit the SED, accounting for the limitations on the accretion rate at the outer radius of $10^3~r_g$ from the earlier works and the domination of the accretion flow within $30~r_g$ to the sub-mm bump. It is found that the fitting results of the outflow index could be very different. If only the most luminous part of the SED, the sub-mm bump, is considered, the outflow index is about 0, while if low-frequency radio data and X-ray data are also included, the outflow index could be 0.37 or even higher. The great difference of the fitting results indicates that the outflow index should be variable along radius, with a strong outflow in the outer region and a weak outflow in the innermost region. Such weak outflow agrees with numerical simulations and is possible to explain the multi-band SED even better., Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in MNRAS

This paper summarizes our recent works of studying AGN feedback in an isolated elliptical galaxy by performing high-resolution hydrodynamical numerical simulations. Bondi radius is resolved and the mass accretion rate of the black hole is calculated. The most updated AGN physics, namely the discrimination of cold and hot accretion modes and the exact descriptions of the AGN radiation and wind for a given accretion rate are adopted and their interaction with the gas in the host galaxy is calculated. Physical processes such as star formation and SNe feedback are taken into account. Consistent with observation, we find the AGN spends most of the time in the low-luminosity regime. AGN feedback overall suppresses the star formation; but depending on location in the galaxy and time, it can also enhance it. The light curve of specific star formation rate is not synchronous with the AGN light curve. We find that wind usually plays a dominant role in controlling the AGN luminosity and star formation, but radiation also cannot be neglected., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; proceedings of the IAUS342 "Perseus in Sicily: from black hole to cluster outskirts"

Many analyses have concluded that the accretion disc sizes measured from the microlensing variability of quasars are larger than the expectations from the standard thin disc theory by a factor of $\sim4$. We propose a simply model by invoking a strong wind from the disc to flatten its radial temperature profile, which can then reconcile the size discrepancy problem. This wind model has been successfully applied to several microlensed quasars with a wind strength $s\lesssim1.3$ by only considering the inward decreasing of the mass accretion rate (where $s$ is defined through $\dot{M}(R)\propto({R}/{R_{0}})^{s}$ ). After further incorporating the angular momentum transferred by the wind, our model can resolve the disc size problem with an even lower wind parameter. The corrected disc sizes under the wind model are correlated with black hole masses with a slope in agreement with our modified thin disc model., Comment: 8 pages, MNRAS in press

This is the second paper of our series of works of studying the effects of active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback on the cosmological evolution of an isolated elliptical galaxy by performing two-dimensional high-resolution hydrodynamical numerical simulations. In these simulations, the inner boundary is chosen so that the Bondi radius is resolved. Physical processes like star formation, SNe Ia and II are taken into account. Compared to previous works, the main improvements is that we adopt the most updated AGN physics, which is described in detail in the first paper of this series (Yuan et al. 2018, Paper I). These improvements include the discrimination of the two accretion modes of the central AGN and the most updated descriptions of the wind and radiation in the two modes. In Paper I, we consider the case that the specific angular momentum of the gas in the galaxy is very low. In this paper, we consider the case that the specific angular momentum of the gas is high. In the galactic scale, we adopt the gravitational torques raised due to non-axisymmetric structure in the galaxy as the mechanism of the transfer of angular momentum of gas, as proposed in some recent works. Since our simulations are axisymmetric, we make use of a parameterized prescription to mimic this mechanism. Same as Paper I, we investigate the AGN light curve, typical AGN lifetime, growth of the black hole mass, AGN duty-cycle, star formation, and the X-ray surface brightness of the galaxy. Special attention is paid to the effects of specific angular momentum of the galaxy on these properties. We find that some results are qualitatively similar to those shown in Paper I, while some results such as star formation and black hole growth do show a significant difference due to the mass concentration in the galactic disk as a consequence of galactic rotation., Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication to ApJ (Revised to match version published in ApJ)

Understanding how galaxies maintain the inefficiency of star formation with physically self-consistent models is a central problem for galaxy evolution. Although numerous theoretical models have been proposed in recent decades, the debate still exists. By means of high-resolution two-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations, we study the three feedback effects (the stellar wind heating, SNe feedback, and AGN feedback) in suppressing star formation activities on the evolution of early-type galaxies with different stellar masses. AGN feedback models are updated based on \citet{Yuan2018}. The gas sources comes exclusively from the mass losses of dying low-mass stars for most of our models. We find that SNe feedback can keep star formation at a significantly low level for low mass elliptical galaxies for a cosmological evolution time. For the high mass galaxies, AGN feedback can efficiently offset the radiative cooling and thus regulate the star formation activities. Such a suppression of star formation is extremely efficient in the inner region of the galaxies. AGB heating cannot account for this suppression for low and high mass galaxies. The X-ray temperature $T_{\rm X}$ and luminosity $L_{\rm X}$ of hot plasma can be in agreement with the observed data with the inclusion of effective feedback processes. These results thus suggest that we can use $T_{\rm X}$ and $L_{\rm X}$ to probe the role of different feedback processes. The inclusion of additional gas sources can make the mass scale between SNe and AGN feedback dominating in suppressing star formation decrease to an observationally inferred value of a few $10^{10}~M_{\odot}$., Comment: 21 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

The clumpy disc, or inhomogeneous accretion flow, has been proposed to explain the properties of accreting black hole systems. However, the observational evidences remain to be explored. In this work, we calculate the profiles of Fe K{\alpha} lines emitted from the inhomogeneous accretion flow through the ray-tracing technique, in order to find possible observable signals of the clumps. Compared with the skewed doublepeaked profile of the continuous standard accretion disc, the lines show a multi-peak structure when the emissivity index is not very steep. The peaks and wings are affected by the position and size of the cold clumps. When the clump is small and is located in the innermost region, due to the significant gravitational redshift, the blue wing can overlap with the red wing of the outer cold disc/clump, forming a fake peak or greatly enhancing the red peak. Given high enough resolution, it is easier to constrain the clumps around the supermassive black holes than the clumps in stellar mass black holes due to the thermal Doppler effect., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted by MNRAS

We investigate the effects of AGN feedback on the cosmological evolution of an isolated elliptical galaxy by performing two-dimensional high-resolution hydrodynamical numerical simulations. The inner boundary of the simulation is chosen so that the Bondi radius is resolved. Compared to previous works, the two accretion modes, namely hot and cold, which correspond to different accretion rates and have different radiation and wind outputs, are carefully discriminated and the feedback effects by radiation and wind in each mode are taken into account. The most updated AGN physics, including the descriptions of radiation and wind from the hot accretion flows and wind from cold accretion disks, are adopted. Physical processes like star formation, Type Ia and Type II supernovae are taken into account. We study the AGN light curve, typical AGN lifetime, growth of the black hole mass, AGN duty-cycle, star formation, and the X-ray surface brightness of the galaxy. We compare our simulation results with observations and find general consistency. Comparisons with previous simulation works find significant differences, indicating the importance of AGN physics. The respective roles of radiation and wind feedbacks are examined and it is found that they are different for different problems of interest such as AGN luminosity and star formation. We find that it is hard to neglect any of them, so we suggest to use the names of "cold feedback mode" and "hot feedback mode" to replace the currently used ones., Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication to ApJ (Revised to match version published in ApJ)

Tunable beam splitter (TBS) is a fundamental component which has been widely used in optical experiments. We realize a polarization-independent orbital-angular-momentum-preserving TBS based on the combination of modified polarization beam splitters and half-wave plates. Greater than 30 dB of the extinction ratio of tunableness, lower than $6\%$ of polarization dependence and more than 20 dB of the extinction ratio of OAM preservation show the relatively good performance of the TBS. In addition, the TBS can save about 3/4 of the optical elements compared with the existing scheme to implement the same function\cite{yang2016experimental}, which makes it have great advantages in scalable applications. Using this TBS, we experimentally built a Sagnac interferometer with the mean visibility of more than $99\%$, which demonstrates its potential applications in quantum information process, such as quantum cryptography., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

The degree of freedom of orbital angular momentum (OAM) is an important resource in high-dimensional quantum information processing, as the quantum number of OAM can be infinite. The Dove prism (DP) is a most common tool to manipulate the OAM light, such as in interferometers. However, the Dove prism does not preserve the polarization of the photon states and decreases the sorting fidelity of the interferometer. In this work, we analyze the polarization-dependent effect of the DP on single-path Sagnac interferometers. The results are instructive to quantum information processing with OAM light. We also proposed a modified single-path beam splitter Sagnac interferometer (BSSI), of which the sorting fidelity is independent on input polarization and can be 100\% in principle. The single-path BSSI is stable for free running. These merits are crucial in quantum information processing, such as quantum cryptography., Comment: 9 pages and 6 figures. To be submitted, comments are welcome

The model of inhomogeneous accretion flow, in which cold clumps are surrounded by hot gas or corona, has been proposed to explain the spectral features of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs). In this work, we try to find possible observational features in the continuum that can indicate the existence of clumps. The spectra of inhomogeneous accretion flow are calculated via the Monte Carlo method. Since the corresponding accretion flow is unsteady and complex, the accretion flow is described by a set of free parameters, the ranges of which can include the real cases. The influences of the parameters are investigated. It is found that the thermal component of the spectra deviates from the multi-color black body spectra in the middle power-law part. On the one hand, a warp appears due to the gap region between the clumps and the outer cold disk, and on the other hand, the slope of the line connecting the thermal peaks deviates from 4/3. The warp feature, as well as the correlation between the thermal peak at higher frequency and the spectral index, are possible to indicate the existence of clumps, and are worthy of further investigation with more self-consistent models., Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics (RAA)

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a weakly irreducible nonnegative tensor with spectral radius $\rho(\mathcal{A})$. Let $\mathfrak{D}$ (respectively, $\mathfrak{D}^{(0)}$) be the set of normalized diagonal matrices arising from the eigenvectors of $\mathcal{A}$ corresponding to the eigenvalues with modulus $\rho(\mathcal{A})$ (respectively, the eigenvalue $\rho(\mathcal{A})$). It is shown that $\mathfrak{D}$ is an abelian group containing $\mathfrak{D}^{(0)}$ as a subgroup, which acts transitively on the set $\{e^{\mathbf{i} \frac{2 \pi j}{\ell}}\mathcal{A}:j =0,1, \ldots,\ell-1\}$, where $|\mathfrak{D}/\mathfrak{D}^{(0)}|=\ell$ and $\mathfrak{D}^{(0)}$ is the stabilizer of $\mathcal{A}$. The spectral symmetry of $\mathcal{A}$ is characterized by the group $\mathfrak{D}/\mathfrak{D}^{(0)}$, and $\mathcal{A}$ is called spectral $\ell$-symmetric. We obtain the structural information of $\mathcal{A}$ by analyzing the property of $\mathfrak{D}$, especially for connected hypergraphs we get some results on the edge distribution and coloring. If moreover $\mathcal{A}$ is symmetric, we prove that $\mathcal{A}$ is spectral $\ell$-symmetric if and only if it is $(m,\ell)$-colorable. We characterize the spectral $\ell$-symmetry of a tensor by using its generalized traces, and show that for an arbitrarily given integer $m \ge 3$ and each positive integer $\ell$ with $\ell \mid m$, there always exists an $m$-uniform hypergraph $G$ such that $G$ is spectral $\ell$-symmetric.

Flares from the supermassive black hole in our Galaxy, Sagittarius~A$^\star$ (Sgr A$^\star$), are routinely observed over the last decade or so. Despite numerous observational and theoretical efforts, the nature of such flares still remains poorly understood, although a few phenomenological scenarios have been proposed. In this work, we develop the Yuan et al. (2009) scenario into a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model for Sgr A$^\star$ flares. This model is analogous with the theory of solar flares and coronal mass ejection in solar physics. In the model, magnetic field loops emerge from the accretion flow onto Sgr A$^\star$ and are twisted to form flux ropes because of shear and turbulence. The magnetic energy is also accumulated in this process until a threshold is reached. This then results in a catastrophic evolution of a flux rope with the help of magnetic reconnection in the current sheet. In this catastrophic process, the magnetic energy is partially converted into the energy of non-thermal electrons. We have quantitatively calculated the dynamical evolution of the height, size, and velocity of the flux rope, as well as the magnetic field in the flare regions, and the energy distribution of relativistic electrons in this process. We further calculate the synchrotron radiation from these electrons and compare the obtained light curves with the observed ones. We find that the model can reasonably explain the main observations of near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray flares including their light curves and spectra. It can also potentially explain the frequency-dependent time delay seen in radio flare light curves., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Calibration of the polarization basis between the transmitter and receiver is an important task in quantum key distribution (QKD). An effective polarization-basis tracking scheme will decrease the quantum bit error rate (QBER) and improve the efficiency of a polarization encoding QKD system. In this paper, we proposed a polarization-basis tracking scheme using only unveiled sifted key bits while performing error correction by legitimate users, rather than introducing additional reference light or interrupting the transmission of quantum signals. A polarization-encoding fiber BB84 QKD prototype was developed to examine the validity of this scheme. An average QBER of 2.32% and a standard derivation of 0.87% have been obtained during 24 hours of continuous operation., Comment: 8 pages 5 figures

Low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs) are believed to be powered by an accretion-jet model, consisting of an inner advection-dominated accretion flow (ADAF), an outer truncated standard thin disk, and a jet. But model degeneracy still exists in this framework. For example, the X-ray emission can originate from either the ADAF or jet. The aim of the present work is to check these models with the Faraday rotation measure (RM) observations recently detected for two LLAGNs, M87 and 3C 84, in the sub-mm band. For M87, we find that the RM predicted by the model in which the X-ray emission originates from the ADAF is larger than the observed upper limit of RM by over two orders of magnitude, while the model in which the X-ray emission originates from the jet predicts a RM lower than the observed upper limit. For 3C 84, the sub-mm emission is found to be dominated by the jet component, while the Faraday screen is attributed to the ADAFs. This scenario can naturally explain the observed {\it external} origin of the RM and why RM is found to be stable during a two-year interval although the sub-mm emission increases at the same period., Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

The single-photon avalanche photodiode(SPAD) has been widely used in research on quantum optics. The afterpulsing effect, which is an intrinsic character of SPAD, affects the system performance in most experiments and needs to be carefully handled. For a long time, afterpulsing has been presumed to be determined by the pre-ignition avalanche. We studied the afterpulsing effect of a commercial InGaAs/InP SPAD (The avalanche photodiode model is: Princeton Lightwave PGA-300) and demonstrated that its afterpulsing is non-Markovian, with a memory effect in the avalanching history. Theoretical analysis and experimental results clearly indicate that the embodiment of this memory effect is the afterpulsing probability, which increases as the number of ignition-avalanche pulses increase. This conclusion makes the principle of the afterpulsing effect clearer and is instructive to the manufacturing processes and afterpulsing evaluation of high-count-rate SPADs. It can also be regarded as a fundamental premise to handle the afterpulsing signals in many applications, such as quantum communication and quantum random number generation., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1603.02360