Search

We investigate systematically four outbursts of black hole system GX 339-4 observed by the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) in both spectral and timing domains and find that these outbursts have some common properties although they experience different 'q' tracks in the hardness-intensity diagram (HID). While the spectral indices are around 1.5 in low hard state (LHS), 2.4 in soft intermediate state (SIMS) and high soft state (HSS), the spectral parameters of thermal, non-thermal and reflection components vary significantly in transitions from LHS to HIMS. Also the quasi periodic oscillation (QPO) shows a peculiar behavior during the state transition between LHS and HIMS: the RMS drop of type C fundamental QPO is accompanied with showing-up of the second harmonic. Interestingly, the QPO RMS is found to have a similar linear relationship with the non-thermal fraction of emission in different outbursts. These findings provide more clues to our understanding the outburst of the black hole X-ray binary system., 13 papes, 12 figures

GRO J1008-57, as a Be/X-ray transient pulsar, is considered to have the highest magnetic field in known neutron star X-ray binary systems. Observational data of the X-ray outbursts in GRO J1008-57 from 2017 to 2020 were collected by the Insight-HXMT satellite. In this work, the spin period of the neutron star in GRO J1008-57 was determined to be about 93.28 seconds in August 2017, 93.22 seconds in February 2018, 93.25 seconds in June 2019 and 93.14 seconds in June 2020. GRO J1008-57 evolved in the spin-up process with a mean rate of − ( 2.10 ± 0.05 ) × 10−4 s/d from 2009 – 2018, and turned into a spin down process with a rate of ( 6.7 ± 0.6 ) × 10−5 s/d from Feb 2018 to June 2019. During the type II outburst of 2020, GRO J1008-57 had the spin-up torque again. During the torque reversals, the pulse profiles and continuum X-ray spectra did not change significantly, and the cyclotron resonant scattering feature around 80 keV was only detected during the outbursts in 2017 and 2020. Based on the observed mean spin-up rate, we estimated the inner accretion disk radius in GRO J1008-57 (about 1 - 2 times of the Alfven radius) by comparing different accretion torque models of magnetic neutron stars. During the spin-down process, the magnetic torque should dominate over the matter accreting inflow torque, and we constrained the surface dipole magnetic field B ≥ 6 × 10 12 G for the neutron star in GRO J1008-57, which is consistent with the magnetic field strength obtained by cyclotron line centroid energy.

We report on the Insight-HXMT observations of the new black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during its 2018 outburst. Detailed spectral analysis via the continuum fitting method shows an evolution of the inferred spin during its high soft sate. Moreover, the hardness ratio, the non-thermal luminosity and the reflection fraction also undergo an evolution, exactly coincident to the period when the inferred spin transition takes place. The unphysical evolution of the spin is attributed to the evolution of the inner disc, which is caused by the collapse of a hot corona due to condensation mechanism or may be related to the deceleration of a jet-like corona. The studies of the inner disc radius and the relation between the disc luminosity and the inner disc radius suggest that, only at a particular epoch, did the inner edge of the disc reach the innermost stable circular orbit and the spin measurement is reliable. We then constrain the spin of MAXI J1820+070 to be a*=0.2^{+0.2}_{-0.3}. Such a slowly spinning black hole possessing a strong jet suggests that its jet activity is driven mainly by the accretion disc rather than by the black hole spin., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short pulses observed in radio band from cosmological distances. One class of models invoke soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs), or magnetars, as the sources of FRBs. Some radio pulses have been observed from some magnetars, however, no FRB-like events had been detected in association any magnetar burst, including one giant flare. Recently, a pair of FRB-like bursts (FRB 200428 hereafter) separated by milliseconds (ms) were detected from the general direction of the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154. Here we report the detection of a non-thermal X-ray burst in the 1-250 keV energy band with the Insight-HXMT satellite, which we identify as emitted from SGR J1935+2154. The burst showed two hard peaks with a separation of 34 ms, broadly consistent with that of the two bursts in FRB 200428. The delay time between the double radio and X-ray peaks is about 8.57 s, fully consistent with the dispersion delay of FRB 200428. We thus identify the non-thermal X-ray burst is associated with FRB 200428 whose high energy counterpart is the two hard peaks in X-ray. Our results suggest that the non-thermal X-ray burst and FRB 200428 share the same physical origin in an explosive event from SGR J1935+2154., 24 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables; initial submission to a journal on May 9th, 2020. Significant changes include updated localization and detailed spectral evolution of the X-ray burst, and better determination of the two narrow X-ray peaks corresponding to the two radio pulses. Conclusions are strengthened. Nature Astronomy online on Feb. 18, 2021

A black hole X-ray binary produces hard X-ray radiation from its corona and disk when the accreting matter heats up. During an outburst, the disk and corona co-evolves with each other. However, such an evolution is still unclear in both its geometry and dynamics. Here we report the unusual decrease of the reflection fraction in MAXI J1820+070, which is the ratio of the coronal intensity illuminating the disk to the coronal intensity reaching the observer, as the corona is observed to contrast during the decay phase. We postulate a jet-like corona model, in which the corona can be understood as a standing shock where the material flowing through. In this dynamical scenario, the decrease of the reflection fraction is a signature of the corona's bulk velocity. Our findings suggest that as the corona is observed to get closer to the black hole, the coronal material might be outflowing faster., 11 pages, 5 figures; published in Nature Communications; An artist's impression of Figure 5 is updated here, and the animation is available at http://youbei.work/research/

Recently, the system parameters of Cygnus X-1, i.e., the black hole mass M, the orbital inclination i and the source distance D, have been updated. As the input constraints of the continuum-fitting method, it is necessary to refine the spin with these new parameters. The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT, also named Insight) was successfully launched on June 15th, 2017 in China. In this work, we analyzed spectra obtained by the Insight-HXMT during 2017-2018 and re-estimated the spin via the continuum-fitting method. We first re-estimated the spin using old parameters and found the dimensionless spin parameter to be a ⁎ > 0.934 (3σ), which is consistent with previous measurements both from the continuum-fitting and iron-line fitting methods ( Gou et al. 2011 , Gou et al. 2014 ; Fabian et al. 2012 , Walton et al. 2016 , Tomsick et al. 2018 ). Then, when the new parameters were applied, we obtained an increased spin: a ⁎ > 0.967 (3σ), which is also consistent with the recent measurement (Zhao et al. 2020, submitted to ApJ) and also confirms an extreme Kerr black hole lying in this system.

A new black hole X-ray binary (BHXRB) MAXI J1535-571 was discovered by MAXI during its outburst in 2017. Using observations taken by the first Chinese X-ray satellite, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (dubbed as Insight-HXMT), we perform a joint spectral analysis (2-150 keV) in both energy and time domains. The energy spectra provide the essential input for probing the intrinsic Quasi-Periodic Oscillation (QPO) fractional rms spectra (FRS). Our results show that during the intermediate state, the energy spectra are in general consistent with those reported by Swift/XRT and NuSTAR. However, the QPO FRS become harder and the FRS residuals may suggest the presence of either an additional power-law component in the energy spectrum or a turn-over in the intrinsic QPO FRS at high energies.

We study the 2018 outburst of Aql X-1 via the monitor of all sky X-ray image (MAXI) data. We show that the outburst starting in February 2018 is a member of short-low class in the frame of outburst duration and the peak count rate although the outburst morphology is slightly different from the other fast-rise-exponential-decay (FRED) type outbursts with a milder rising stage. We study the partial accretion in the weak propeller stage of Aql X-1 via the MAXI data of the 2018 outburst. We report on the spectral analysis of 3 observations of Aquila X-1 obtained by Insight – hard X-ray modulation telescope (Insight-HXMT) during the late decay stage of the 2018 outburst. We discuss that the data taken by Insight-HXMT is just after the transition to the weak propeller stage. Our analysis shows the necessity of a comptonization component to take into account the existence of an electron cloud resulting photons partly up-scattered.

We present a detailed timing study of the brightest persistent X-ray source Sco X-1 using the data collected by the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope ( I n s i g h t -HXMT) from July 2017 to August 2018. A complete Z-track hardness-intensity diagram (HID) is obtained. The normal branch oscillations (NBOs) at ∼ 6 Hz in the lower part of the normal branch (NB) and the flare branch oscillations (FBOs) at ∼ 16 Hz in the beginning part of the flaring branch (FB) are found in observations with the Low Energy X-ray Telescope (LE) and the Medium Energy X-ray Telescope (ME) of I n s i g h t -HXMT, while the horizontal branch oscillations (HBOs) at ∼ 40 Hz and the kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) at ∼ 800 Hz are found simultaneously above 20 keV for the first time on the horizontal branch (HB) by the High Energy X-ray Telescope (HE) and ME. We find that for all types of the observed QPOs, the centroid frequencies are independent of energy, while the root mean square (rms) increases with energy; the centroid frequencies of both the HBOs and kHz QPOs increase along the Z-track from the top to the bottom of the HB; and the NBOs show soft phase lags increasing with energy. A continuous QPO transition from the FB to NB in ∼ 200 s are also detected. Our results indicate that the non-thermal emission is the origin of all types of QPOs, the innermost region of the accretion disk is non-thermal in nature, and the corona is nonhomogeneous geometrically.

The High Energy X-ray telescope (HE) on-board the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (\textit{Insight}-HXMT) can serve as a wide Field of View (FOV) gamma-ray monitor with high time resolution ($\mu$s) and large effective area (up to thousands cm$^2$). We developed a pipeline to search for Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), using the traditional signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) method for blind search and the coherent search method for targeted search. By taking into account the location and spectrum of the burst and the detector response, the targeted coherent search is more powerful to unveil weak and sub-threshold bursts, especially those in temporal coincidence with Gravitational Wave (GW) events. Based on the original method in literature, we further improved the coherent search to filter out false triggers caused by spikes in light curves, which are commonly seen in gamma-ray instruments (e.g. \textit{Fermi}/GBM, \textit{POLAR}). We show that our improved targeted coherent search method could eliminate almost all false triggers caused by spikes. Based on the first two years of \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE data, our targeted search recovered 40 GRBs, which were detected by either \textit{Swift}/BAT or \textit{Fermi}/GBM but too weak to be found in our blind search. With this coherent search pipeline, the GRB detection sensitivity of \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE is increased to about 1.5E-08 erg/cm$^2$ (200 keV$-$3 MeV). We also used this targeted coherent method to search \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE data for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of LIGO-Virgo GW events (including O2 and O3a runs). However, we did not find any significant burst associated with GW events., Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables; accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report the energy-resolved broadband timing analysis of the black hole X-ray transient MAXI J1631-479 during its 2019 outburst from February 11 to April 9, using data from the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), which caught the source from its hard intermediate state to the soft state. Thanks to the large effective area of Insight-HXMT at high energies, we are able to present the energy dependence of fast variability up to ~100 keV. Type-C quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) with frequency varying between 4.9 Hz and 6.5 Hz are observed in the 1-100 keV energy band. While the QPO fractional rms increases with photon energy from 1 keV to ~10 keV and remains more or less constant from ~10 keV to ~100 keV, the rms of the flat-top noise first increases from 1 keV to ~8 keV then drops to less than 0.1% above ~30 keV. We suggest that the disappearance of the broadband variability above 30 keV could be caused by the non-thermal acceleration in the Comptonizing plasma. At the same time, the QPOs could be produced by the precession of either a small-scale jet or a hot inner flow model., To be published in The Astrophysical Journal

The evidences for the influence of thermonuclear (type-I) X-ray bursts upon the surrounding environments in neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) were detected previously via spectral and timing analyses. Benefitting from a broad energy coverage of Insight-HXMT, we analyze one photospheric radius expansion (PRE) burst, and find an emission excess at soft X-rays. Our spectral analysis shows that, such an excess is not likely relevant to the disk reflection induced by the burst emission and can be attributed to an enhanced pre-burst/persistent emission. We find that the burst and enhanced persistent emissions sum up to exceed Eddington luminosity by ∼ 40 percentages. We speculate that the enhanced emission is from a region beyond the PRE radius, or through the Comptonization of the corona.

High energy X-ray telescope (HE) is one of the three instruments of Insight-HXMT (Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope) payload. The HE detector (HED) array is composed of 18 actively NaI(Tl)/CsI(Na) phoswich scintillators with a total geometric area of ∼ 5100 cm 2 and cover the energy range 20∼250 keV. In this paper we describe the on-ground detector-level calibration campaigns and present the principal instrument properties of HEDs.

In this paper, we presented a detailed timing analysis of a prominent outburst of 4U 0115+63 detected by \textit{Insight}-HXMT in 2017 August. The spin period of the neutron star was determined to be $3.61398\pm 0.00002$ s at MJD 57978. We measured the period variability and extract the orbital elements of the binary system. The angle of periastron evolved with a rate of $0.048\pm0.003$ $yr^{-1}$. The light curves are folded to sketch the pulse profiles in different energy ranges. A multi-peak structure in 1-10 keV is clearly illustrated. We introduced wavelet analysis into our data analysis procedures to study QPO signals and perform a detailed wavelet analysis in many different energy ranges. Through the wavelet spectra, we report the discovery of a QPO at the frequency $\sim 10$ mHz. In addition, the X-ray light curves showed multiple QPOs in the period of $\sim 16-32 $ s and $\sim 67- 200 $ s. We found that the $\sim100$ s QPO was significant in most of the observations and energies. There exist positive relations between X-ray luminosity and their Q-factors and S-factors, while the QPO periods have no correlation with X-ray luminosity. In wavelet phase maps, we found that the pulse phase of $\sim 67- 200 $ s QPO drifting frequently while the $\sim 16-32 $ s QPO scarcely drifting. The dissipation of oscillations from high energy to low energy was also observed. These features of QPOs in 4U 0115+63 provide new challenge to our understanding of their physical origins., 14 pages, 9 figures, and 6 tables. This work has been submitted to MNRAS after the referee's report

We report on a detailed spectral analysis of the transient X-ray pulsar 1A~0535+262, which underwent the brightest giant outburst ever recorded for this source from November to December 2020 with a peak luminosity of $1.2$ $\times10^{38}\ \rm erg\ s^{-1}$. Thanks to the unprecedented energy coverage and high cadence observations provided by Insight-HXMT, we were able to find for the first time evidence for a transition of the accretion regime. At high luminosity, above the critical luminosity $6.7\times10^{37}$ erg s$^{-1}$, the cyclotron absorption line energy anti-correlates with luminosity. Below the critical luminosity, a positive correlation is observed. The 1A~0535+262 becomes, therefore, the second source after V~0332+53, which clearly shows an anti-correlation above and transition between correlation and anti-correlation around the critical luminosity. The evolution of both the observed CRSF line energy and broadband X-ray continuum spectrum throughout the outburst exhibits significant differences during the rising and fading phases: that is, for a similar luminosity the spectral parameters take different values which results in hysteresis patterns for several spectral parameters including the cyclotron line energy. We argue that, similarly to V~0332+53, these changes might be related to different geometry of the emission region in rising and declining parts of the outburst, probably due to changes in the accretion disk structure and its interaction with the magnetosphere of the neutron star.

After 34 years, the black-hole candidate EXO 1846-031 went into outburst again in 2019. We investigate its spectral properties in the hard intermediate and the soft states with NuSTAR and Insight-HXMT. A reflection component has been detected in the two spectral states but possibly originating from different illumination spectra: in the intermediate state, the illuminating source is attributed to a hard coronal component, which has been commonly observed in other X-ray binaries, whereas in the soft state the reflection is probably produced by the disk self-irradiation. Both cases support EXO 1846-031 as a low inclination system of ~40 degrees. An absorption line is clearly detected at ~7.2 keV in the hard intermediate state, corresponding to a highly ionized disk wind (log {\xi} > 6.1) with a velocity up to 0.06c. Meanwhile, quasi-simultaneous radio emissions have been detected before and after the X-rays, implying the co-existence of disk winds and jets in this system. Additionally, the observed wind in this source is potentially driven by magnetic forces. The absorption line disappeared in the soft state and a narrow emission line appeared at ~6.7 keV on top of the reflection component, which may be evidence for disk winds, but data with the higher spectral resolution are required to examine this., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

Based on Insight-HXMT data, we report on the pulse fraction evolution during the 2017–2018 outburst of the newly discovered first Galactic ultraluminous X-ray (ULX) source Swift J0243.6+6124. The pulse fractions of 19 observation pairs selected in the rising and fading phases with similar luminosity are investigated. The results show a general trend of the pulse fraction increasing with luminosity and energy at supercritical luminosity. However, the relative strength of the pulsation between each pair evolves strongly with luminosity. The pulse fraction in the rising phase is larger at luminosity below 7.71 × 1038 erg s−1, but smaller at above. A transition luminosity is found to be energy independent. Such a phenomenon is first confirmed by Insight-HXMT observations and we speculate that it may have relation with the radiation-pressure-dominated accretion disc.

We present the observational results from a detailed timing analysis of the black hole candidate EXO 1846–031 during its outburst in 2019 with the observations of Insight-HXMT, NICER and MAXI. This outburst can be classified roughly into four different states. Type-C quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed by NICER (about 0.1–6 Hz) and Insight-HXMT (about 0.7–8 Hz) are also reported in this work. Meanwhile, we study various physical quantities related to QPO frequency. The QPO rms–frequency relationship in the energy band 1–10 keV indicates that there is a turning pointing in frequency around 2 Hz, which is similar to that of GRS 1915+105. A possible hypothesis for the relationship above may be related to the inclination of the source, which may require a high inclination to explain it. The relationships between QPO frequency and QPO rms, hardness, total fractional rms and count rate have also been found in other transient sources, which can indicate that the origin of type–C QPOs is non-thermal.

Low-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (LFQPOs) are commonly found in black hole X-ray binaries, and their origin is still under debate. The properties of LFQPOs at high energies (above 30 keV) are closely related to the nature of the accretion flow in the innermost regions, and thus play a crucial role in critically testing various theoretical models. The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) is capable of detecting emissions above 30 keV, and is therefore an ideal instrument to do so. Here we report the discovery of LFQPOs above 200 keV in the new black hole MAXI J1820+070 in the X-ray hard state, which allows us to understand the behaviours of LFQPOs at hundreds of kiloelectronvolts. The phase lag of the LFQPO is constant around zero below 30 keV, and becomes a soft lag (that is, the high-energy photons arrive first) above 30 keV. The soft lag gradually increases with energy and reaches ~0.9s in the 150-200 keV band. The detection at energies above 200 keV, the large soft lag and the energy-related behaviors of the LFQPO pose a great challenge for most currently existing models, but suggest that the LFQPO probably originates from the precession of a small-scale jet., 36 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables; published in Nature Astronomy

We study the evolution of the temporal properties of MAXI 1820+070 during the 2018 outburst in its hard state from MJD 58190 to 58289 with Insight-HXMT in a broad energy band 1-150 keV. We find different behaviors of the hardness ratio, the fractional rms and time lag before and after MJD 58257, suggesting a transition occurred at around this point. The observed time lags between the soft photons in the 1-5 keV band and the hard photons in higher energy bands, up to 150 keV, are frequency-dependent: the time lags in the low-frequency range, 2-10 mHz, are both soft and hard lags with a timescale of dozens of seconds but without a clear trend along the outburst; the time lags in the high-frequency range, 1-10 Hz, are only hard lags with a timescale of tens of milliseconds; first increase until around MJD 58257 and decrease after this date. The high-frequency time lags are significantly correlated to the photon index derived from the fit to the quasi-simultaneous NICER spectrum in the 1-10 keV band. This result is qualitatively consistent with a model in which the high-frequency time lags are produced by Comptonization in a jet., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

As China's first X-ray astronomical satellite, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), which was dubbed as Insight-HXMT after the launch on June 15, 2017, is a wide-band (1-250 keV) slat-collimator-based X-ray astronomy satellite with the capability of all-sky monitoring in 0.2-3 MeV. It was designed to perform pointing, scanning and gamma-ray burst (GRB) observations and, based on the Direct Demodulation Method (DDM), the image of the scanned sky region can be reconstructed. Here we give an overview of the mission and its progresses, including payload, core sciences, ground calibration/facility, ground segment, data archive, software, in-orbit performance, calibration, background model, observations and some preliminary results., 29 pages, 40 figures, 6 tables, to appear in Sci. China-Phys. Mech. Astron. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1910.04434

We report on our analysis of the 2019 outburst of the X-ray accreting pulsar 4U 1901+03 observed with Insight-HXMT and NICER. Both spectra and pulse profiles evolve significantly in the decaying phase of the outburst. Dozens of flares are observed throughout the outburst. They are more frequent and brighter at the outburst peak. We find that the flares, which have a duration from tens to hundreds of seconds, are generally brighter than the persistent emission by a factor of $\sim$ 1.5. The pulse profile shape during the flares can be significantly different than that of the persistent emission. In particular, a phase shift is clearly observed in many cases. We interpret these findings as direct evidence of changes of the pulsed beam pattern, due to transitions between the sub- and super-critical accretion regimes on a short time scale. We also observe that at comparable luminosities the flares' pulse profiles are rather similar to those of the persistent emission. This indicates that the accretion on the polar cap of the neutron star is mainly determined by the luminosity, i.e., the mass accretion rate., 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

No robust detection of prompt electromagnetic counterparts to fast radio bursts (FRBs) has yet been obtained, in spite of several multi-wavelength searches carried out so far. Specifically, X/gamma-ray counterparts are predicted by some models. We planned on searching for prompt gamma-ray counterparts in the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) data, taking advantage of the unique combination of large effective area in the keV-MeV energy range and of sub-ms time resolution. We selected 39 FRBs that were promptly visible from the High-Energy (HE) instrument aboard Insight-HXMT. After calculating the expected arrival times at the location of the spacecraft, we searched for a significant excess in both individual and cumulative time profiles over a wide range of time resolutions, from several seconds down to sub-ms scales. Using the dispersion measures in excess of the Galactic terms, we estimated the upper limits on the redshifts. No convincing signal was found and for each FRB we constrained the gamma-ray isotropic-equivalent luminosity and the released energy as a function of emission timescale. For the nearest FRB source, the periodic repeater FRB180916.J0158+65, we find $L_{\gamma,iso}, Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables, accepted by A&A

We report on the observation of the accreting pulsar GRO J1008-57 performed by Insight-HXMT at the peak of the source's 2017 outburst. Pulsations are detected with a spin period of 93.283(1) s. The pulse profile shows double peaks at soft X-rays, and only one peak above 20 keV. The spectrum is well described by the phenomenological models of X-ray pulsars. A cyclotron resonant scattering feature is detected with very high statistical significance at a centroid energy of $E_{\rm cyc}=90.32_{-0.28}^{+0.32}$ keV, for the reference continuum and line models, HIGHECUT and GABS respectively. Detection is very robust with respect to different continuum models. The line energy is significantly higher than what suggested from previous observations, which provided very marginal evidence for the line. This establishes a new record for the centroid energy of a fundamental cyclotron resonant scattering feature observed in accreting pulsars. We also discuss the accretion regime of the source during the Insight-HXMT observation., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL

A link between magnetars and fast radio burst (FRB) sources has finally been established. In this context, one of the open issues is whether/which sources of extra galactic FRBs exhibit X/gamma-ray outbursts and whether it is correlated with radio activity. We aim to constrain possible X/gamma-ray burst activity from one of the nearest extragalactic FRB sources currently known over a broad energy range, by looking for bursts over a range of timescales and energies that are compatible with being powerful flares from extragalactic magnetars. We followed up the as-yet nearest extragalactic FRB source at a mere 149 Mpc distance, the periodic repeater FRB180916.J0158+65, during the active phase on February 4-7, 2020, with the Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT). Taking advantage of the combination of broad band, large effective area, and several independent detectors available, we searched for bursts over a set of timescales from 1 ms to 1.024 s with a sensitive algorithm, that had previously been characterised and optimised. Moreover, through simulations we studied the sensitivity of our technique in the released energy-duration phase space for a set of synthetic flares and assuming different energy spectra. We constrain the possible occurrence of flares in the 1-100 keV energy band to E, 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted by A&A

We investigate the absorption and emission features in observations of GX 301-2 detected with Insight-HXMT/LE in 2017-2019. At different orbital phases, we found prominent Fe Kalpha, Kbeta and Ni Kalpha lines, as well as Compton shoulders and Fe K-shell absorption edges. These features are due to the X-ray reprocessing caused by the interaction between the radiation from the source and surrounding accretion material. According to the ratio of iron lines Kalpha and Kbeta, we infer the accretion material is in a low ionisation state. We find an orbital-dependent local absorption column density, which has a large value and strong variability around the periastron. We explain its variability as a result of inhomogeneities of the accretion environment and/or instabilities of accretion processes. In addition, the variable local column density is correlated with the equivalent width of the iron Kalpha lines throughout the orbit, which suggests that the accretion material near the neutron star is spherically distributed., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Glitches correspond to sudden jumps of rotation frequency ($\nu$) and its derivative ($\dot{\nu}$) of pulsars, the origin of which remains not well understood yet, partly because the jump processes of most glitches are not well time-resolved. There are three large glitches of the Crab pulsar, detected in 1989, 1996 and 2017, which were found to have delayed spin-up processes before the normal recovery processes. Here we report two additional glitches of the Crab pulsar occurred in 2004 and 2011 for which we discovered delayed spin up processes, and present refined parameters of the largest glitch occurred in 2017. The initial rising time of the glitch is determined as $, Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures

Solar flare formation mechanisms and their corresponding predictions have commonly been difficult topics in solar physics for decades. The traditional forecasting method manually constructs a statistical relationship between the measured values of solar active regions and solar flares that cannot fully utilize the information related to solar flares contained in observational data. In this article, we first used neural-network methods driven by the measured magnetogram and magnetic characteristic parameters of the sunspot group to learn the prediction model and predict solar flares. The prediction fusion model is based on a deep neural network, convolutional neural network, and bidirectional long short-term memory neural network and can predict whether a sunspot group will have a flare event above class M or class C in the next 24 or 48 hr. The real skill statistics (TSS) and F1 scores were used to evaluate the performances of our fusion model. The test results clearly show that this fusion model can make full use of the information related to solar flares and combine the advantages of each independent model to capture the evolution characteristics of solar flares, which is a much better performance than traditional statistical prediction models or any single machine-learning method. We also proposed two frameworks, namely F1_FFM and TSS_FFM, which optimize the F1 score and TSS score, respectively. The cross validation results show that they have their respective advantages in the F1 score and TSS score.

A solar active region is a source of disturbance for the Sun–terrestrial space environment and usually causes extreme space weather, such as geomagnetic storms. The main indicator of an active region is sunspots. Certain types of sunspots are related to extreme space weather caused by eruptive events such as coronal mass ejections or solar flares. Thus, the automatic classification of sunspot groups is helpful to predict solar activity quickly and accurately. This paper completed the automatic classification of a sunspot group data set based on the Mount Wilson classification scheme, which contains continuum and magnetogram images provided by the Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager SHARP data from 2010 May 1 to 2017 December 12. After applying some data preprocessing steps such as image cropping and data standardization, the features of magnetic type in the data are more obvious, and the amount of data is increased. The processed data are spliced into two frames of single-channel data for the neural network to perform 3D convolution operations. This paper constructs a variety of convolutional neural networks with different structures and numbers of layers, selects 10 models as representatives, and chooses XGBoost, which is commonly used in ensemble-learning algorithms, to fuse the results of independent classification models. We found that XGBoost is an effective way to fuse models, which is proved by the relatively balanced high scores in the three magnetic types. The accuracy of the ensemble model is above 92%. The F1 scores of the magnetic types of Alpha, Beta, and Beta-x reached 0.95, 0.91, and 0.82 respectively.

Synergetic effects of total-ionizing-dose irradiation on the single event upset (SEU) and single event transient (SET) performance of 40-nm sequential circuits are studied at doses up to 2 Mrad(SiO2). The impacts of input pattern and supply voltage are evaluated. An initial increase of SEU- and SET-induced soft error cross-section versus total dose is observed, followed by a decreasing trend at higher doses. The maximum increase of SEU- and SET-induced soft error cross-section occurs when the total-ionizing-dose is approximately 1.5 Mrad(SiO2) in the studied sequential circuit. The SET-induced soft error cross-section versus total dose increases at a faster speed than the SEU-induced soft error cross-section.

We report on analysis of observations of the bright transient X-ray pulsar \src obtained during its 2017-2018 giant outburst with Insight-HXMT, \emph{NuSTAR}, and \textit{Swift} observatories. We focus on the discovery of a sharp state transition of the timing and spectral properties of the source at super-Eddington accretion rates, which we associate with the transition of the accretion disk to a radiation pressure dominated (RPD) state, the first ever directly observed for magnetized neutron star. This transition occurs at slightly higher luminosity compared to already reported transition of the source from sub- to super-critical accretion regime associate with onset of an accretion column. We argue that this scenario can only be realized for comparatively weakly magnetized neutron star, not dissimilar to other ultra-luminous X-ray pulsars (ULPs), which accrete at similar rates. Further evidence for this conclusion is provided by the non-detection of the transition to the propeller state in quiescence which strongly implies compact magnetosphere and thus rules out magnetar-like fields., Submitted to MNRAS

We present a study of timing properties of the accreting pulsar 2S 1417-624 observed during its 2018 outburst, based on Swift/BAT, Fermi/GBM, Insight-HXMT and NICER observations. We report a dramatic change of the pulse profiles with luminosity. The morphology of the profile in the range 0.2-10.0keV switches from double to triple peaks at $\sim2.5$ $\rm \times 10^{37}{\it D}_{10}^2\ erg\ s^{-1}$ and from triple to quadruple peaks at $\sim7$ $\rm \times 10^{37}{\it D}_{10}^2\ erg\ s^{-1}$. The profile at high energies (25-100keV) shows significant evolutions as well. We explain this phenomenon according to existing theoretical models. We argue that the first change is related to the transition from the sub to the super-critical accretion regime, while the second to the transition of the accretion disc from the gas-dominated to the radiation pressure-dominated state. Considering the spin-up as well due to the accretion torque, this interpretation allows to estimate the magnetic field self-consistently at $\sim7\times 10^{12}$G., 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

The recently discovered neutron star transient Swift J0243.6+6124 has been monitored by {\it the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope} ({\it Insight-\rm HXMT). Based on the obtained data, we investigate the broadband spectrum of the source throughout the outburst. We estimate the broadband flux of the source and search for possible cyclotron line in the broadband spectrum. No evidence of line-like features is, however, found up to $\rm 150~keV$. In the absence of any cyclotron line in its energy spectrum, we estimate the magnetic field of the source based on the observed spin evolution of the neutron star by applying two accretion torque models. In both cases, we get consistent results with $B\rm \sim 10^{13}~G$, $D\rm \sim 6~kpc$ and peak luminosity of $\rm >10^{39}~erg~s^{-1}$ which makes the source the first Galactic ultraluminous X-ray source hosting a neutron star., published

We present the analysis of the brightest flare that was recorded in the \emph{Insight}-HMXT data set, in a broad energy range (2$-$200 keV) from the microquasar GRS~1915+105 during an unusual low-luminosity state. This flare was detected by \emph{Insight}-HXMT among a series of flares during 2 June 2019 UTC 16:37:06 to 20:11:36, with a 2-200 keV luminosity of 3.4$-$7.27$\times10^{38}$ erg s$^{-1}$. Basing on the broad-band spectral analysis, we find that the flare spectrum shows different behaviors during bright and faint epochs. The spectrum of the flare can be fitted with a model dominated by a power-law component. Additional components show up in the bright epoch with a hard tail and in the faint epoch with an absorption line $\sim$ 6.78 keV. The reflection component of the latter is consistent with an inner disk radius $\sim$ 5 times larger than that of the former. These results on the giant flare during the "unusual" low-luminosity state of GRS~1915+105 may suggest that the source experiences a possible fast transition from a jet-dominated state to a wind-dominated state. We speculate that the evolving accretion disk and the large-scale magnetic field may play important roles in this peculiar huge flare.

The anti-coincidence detectors of Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) are designed to suppress the X-ray background induced by incident charged cosmic-ray particles. The main components of anti-coincidence detectors are thin flat plastic scintillators. In this work we apply the TracePro program to study the light transfer features in the scintillators, and we propose several optimized reflector configurations to significantly improve the light transfer efficiency. The simulation results are verified by measurements of the detector prototypes. We chose a particular optimized reflector configuration.

We present the X-ray timing results of the new black hole candidate (BHC) MAXI J1535-571 during its 2017 outburst from Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (\emph{Insight}-HXMT) observations taken from 2017 September 6 to 23. Following the definitions given by \citet{Belloni2010}, we find that the source exhibits state transitions from Low/Hard state (LHS) to Hard Intermediate state (HIMS) and eventually to Soft Intermediate state (SIMS). Quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) are found in the intermediate states, which suggest different types of QPOs. With the large effective area of \emph{Insight}-HXMT at high energies, we are able to present the energy dependence of the QPO amplitude and centroid frequency up to 100 keV which is rarely explored by previous satellites. We also find that the phase lag at the type-C QPOs centroid frequency is negative (soft lags) and strongly correlated with the centroid frequency. By assuming a geometrical origin of type-C QPOs, the source is consistent with being a high inclination system., Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, Sumbitted to ApJ

Single-event transient (SET) induced harmonic errors have been observed in digitally controlled ring oscillators (DCRO). Accumulated phase error is used to characterize harmonic errors in ring oscillator circuits. An analytical model for determining minimum and maximum SET transient duration capable of generating a harmonic is described. Simulation and TPA laser experimental results on a 40-nm DCRO are shown to confirm the assertion of the harmonic vulnerability window with respect to SET pulsewidth. Further more, fault injection experimental results on three RO designs built with discrete commercial off-the-shelf components are included to demonstrate the relationship between harmonic response and SET pulsewidth.

In this work, we report the in-orbit demonstration of X-ray pulsar navigation with Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), which was launched on Jun. 15th, 2017. The new pulsar navigation method 'Significance Enhancement of Pulse-profile with Orbit-dynamics' (SEPO) is adopted to determine the orbit with observations of only one pulsar. In this test, the Crab pulsar is chosen and observed by Insight-HXMT from Aug. 31th to Sept. 5th in 2017. Using the 5-day-long observation data, the orbit of Insight-HXMT is determined successfully with the three telescopes onboard - High Energy X-ray Telescope (HE), Medium Energy X-ray Telescope (ME) and Low Energy X-ray Telescope (LE) - respectively. Combining all the data, the position and velocity of the Insight-HXMT are pinpointed to within 10 km (3 sigma) and 10 m/s (3 sigma), respectively., Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Supplement

LS 5039 is so far the best studied $\gamma$-ray binary system at multi-wavelength energies. A time resolved study of its spectral energy distribution (SED) shows that above 1 keV its power output is changing along its binary orbit as well as being a function of energy. To disentangle the energy dependence of the power output as a function of orbital phase, we investigated in detail the orbital light curves as derived with different telescopes at different energy bands. We analysed the data from all existing \textit{INTEGRAL}/IBIS/ISGRI observations of the source and generated the most up-to-date orbital light curves at hard X-ray energies. In the $\gamma$-ray band, we carried out orbital phase-resolved analysis of \textit{Fermi}-LAT data between 30 MeV and 10 GeV in 5 different energy bands. We found that, at $\lesssim$100 MeV and $\gtrsim$1 TeV the peak of the $\gamma$-ray emission is near orbital phase 0.7, while between $\sim$100 MeV and $\sim$1 GeV it moves close to orbital phase 1.0 in an orbital anti-clockwise manner. This result suggests that the transition region in the SED at soft $\gamma$-rays (below a hundred MeV) is related to the orbital phase interval of 0.5--1.0 but not to the one of 0.0--0.5, when the compact object is "behind" its companion. Another interesting result is that between 3 and 20 GeV no orbital modulation is found, although \textit{Fermi}-LAT significantly ($\sim$18$\sigma$) detects LS 5039. This is consistent with the fact that at these energies, the contributions to the overall emission from the inferior conjunction phase region (INFC, orbital phase 0.45 to 0.9) and from the superior conjunction phase region (SUPC, orbital phase 0.9 to 0.45) are equal in strength. At TeV energies the power output is again dominant in the INFC region and the flux peak occurs at phase $\sim$0.7., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

IGR J18179-1621 is a hard X-ray binary transient discovered recently by INTEGRAL. Here we report on detailed timing and spectral analysis on IGR J18179-1621 in X-rays based on available INTEGRAL and Swift data. From the INTEGRAL analysis, IGR J18179-1621 is detected with a significance of 21.6 sigma in the 18-40 keV band by ISGRI and 15.3 sigma in the 3-25 keV band by JEM-X, between 2012-02-29 and 2012-03-01. We analyze two quasisimultaneous Swift ToO observations. A clear 11.82 seconds pulsation is detected above the white noise at a confidence level larger than 99.99%. The pulse fraction is estimated as 22+/-8% in 0.2-10 keV. No sign of pulsation is detected by INTEGRAL/ISGRI in the 18-40 keV band. With Swift and INTEGRAL spectra combined in soft and hard X-rays, IGR J18179-1621 could be fitted by an absorbed power law with a high energy cutoff plus a Gaussian absorption line centered at 21.5 keV. An additional absorption intrinsic to the source is found, while the absorption line is evidence for most probably originated from cyclotron resonant scattering and suggests a magnetic field in the emitting region of \sim 2.4 \times 10^12 Gauss.

Corona cooling was detected previously from stacking a series of short type-I bursts occurred during the low/had state of atoll outburst. Type-I bursts are hence regarded as sharp probe to our better understanding on the basic property of the corona. The launch of the first Chinese X-ray satellite Insight-HXMT has large detection area at hard X-rays which provide almost unique chance to move further in this research field. We report the first detection of the corona cooling by Insight-HXMT from single short type-I burst showing up during {\bf flare} of 4U 1636-536. This type-I X-ray burst has a duration of $\sim$13 seconds and hard X-ray shortage is detected with significance 6.2~$\sigma$ in 40-70 keV. A cross-correlation analysis between the lightcurves of soft and hard X-ray band, shows that the corona shortage lag the burst emission by 1.6 $\pm$1.2~s. These results are consistent with those derived previously from stacking a large amount of bursts detected by RXTE/PCA within a series of {\bf flares} of 4U 1636-536. Moreover, the broad bandwidth of Insight-HXMT allows as well for the first time to infer the burst influence upon the continuum spectrum via performing the spectral fitting of the burst, which ends up with the finding that hard X-ray shortage appears at around 40 keV in the continuum spectrum. These results suggest that the evolution of the corona along with the outburst{\bf /flare} of NS XRB may be traced via looking into a series of embedded type-I bursts by using Insight-HXMT., Comment: published in 2018, ApJL,864, L30

We report results of the study of solitons in a system of two nonlinear-Schrodinger (NLS) equations coupled by the XPM interaction, which models the co-propagation of two waves in metamaterials(MMs). The same model applies to photonic crystals (PCs), as well as to ordinary optical fibers, close to the zero-dispersion point. A peculiarity of the system is a small positive or negative value of the relative group-velocity dispersion (GVD) coefficient in one equation, assuming that the dispersion is anomalous in the other. In contrast to earlier studied systems of nonlinearly coupled NLS equations with equal GVD coefficients, which generate only simple single-peak solitons, the present model gives rise to families of solitons with complex shapes, which feature extended oscillatory tails and/or a double-peak structure at the center. Regions of existence are identified for single- and double-peak bimodal solitons, demonstrating a broad bistability in the system. Behind the existence border, they degenerate into single-component solutions. Direct simulations demonstrate stability of the solitons in the entire existence regions. Effects of the group-velocity mismatch (GVM) and optical loss are considered too. It is demonstrated that the solitons can be stabilized against the GVM by means of the respective "management" scheme. Under the action of the loss, complex shapes of the solitons degenerate into simple ones, but periodic compensation of the loss supports the complexity., Comment: Optics Communications, in press (Special Issue on Nonlinear Metamaterials)

We report the results of a systematic analysis of the existence and stability of spatiotemporal (two-dimensional) solitons (STSs) in the model of a planar waveguide with the intrinsic χ ( 2 ) nonlinearity. Fundamental obstacles to the creation of STSs under physically realistic conditions are the normal sign of the group-velocity dispersion (GVD) at the second harmonic (SH), and the significant group-velocity mismatch (GVM) between the SH and fundamental-frequency (FF) components. To construct STS solutions in a numerical form, we adjust the iterative method, which was recently used for finding temporal (one-dimensional) χ ( 2 ) solitons in a similar setting. We identify effective existence borders for the STSs, within which the energy loss to the generation of extended “tails” in the SH component (due to the normal sign of the GVD) is negligible. It is demonstrated that the existence region can be made much broader by means of the GVD-management and GVM-management techniques. We also explore interactions between the STSs, and find robust two-soliton bound states, with a moderate separation in the longitudinal (temporal) direction. Head-on collisions between the STSs are always destructive.

We study the dynamics of two-component solitons in a dispersion-managed (DM) system, built as a periodic concatenation of segments of optical fibers with anomalous and normal group-velocity dispersion (GVD). The model includes, in addition to the usual GVD and nonlinear terms, birefringence and polarization-mode-dispersion (PMD), in the form of the polarization scrambling (random rotation of the polarization) taking place at randomly distributed defects. We propose a numerical algorithm for finding optimized DM solitons in such a system, which secure stable transmission over a large distance. The analysis includes effects of the PMD-induced noise, together with the noise due to the spontaneous amplifier emission, and the input-source noise. It is concluded that, if the group-velocity birefringence is not excessively large, the use of the optimized solitons makes it possible to tolerate the PMD effects in the long-haul DM link.

We demonstrate efficacy of shaping Gaussian pulses into dispersion-managed (DM) solitons by dint of a device which includes two fibers with the same group-velocity-dispersion (GVD) coefficients as in the DM system, a frequency-domain filter, and an amplifier. The shaping of a given input pulse is optimized by adjusting values of four free parameters of the cell, viz., lengths of the two fibers, filtering coefficient, and amplification gain, with the objective to achieve the best fit of the transformed pulse to the (numerically found) DM soliton, including systems with the third-order GVD, and with three-step DM maps. Launching reshaped pulses into the DM system, we demonstrate, in direct simulations, their complete stability over indefinitely long propagation distances. We examine sensitivity of the reshaping to deviations of the control parameters from their optimum values, a noteworthy results being very weak dependence on variations of the filtering strength. The dependence of the four control parameters on the width and chirp of the Gaussian input signal is also studied in detail.

We use electrical detection, in combination with microwave transmission, to investigate both resonant and non-resonant magnon-photon coupling at room temperature. Spin pumping in a dynamically coupled magnon-photon system is found to be distinctly different from previous experiments. Characteristic coupling features such as modes anti-crossing, line width evolution, peculiar line shape, and resonance broadening are systematically measured and consistently analyzed by a theoretical model set on the foundation of classical electrodynamic coupling. Our experimental and theoretical approach pave the way for pursuing microwave coherent manipulation of pure spin current via the combination of spin pumping and magnon-photon coupling., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

We consider a model of a matter-wave laser generating a periodic array of solitary-wave pulses. The system, a general version of which was recently proposed in Ref. [5], is composed of two parallel tunnel-coupled cigar-shaped traps (a reservoir and a lasing cavity), solitons being released through a valve at one edge of the cavity. We report a stable lasing mode accounted for by circulations of a narrow soliton in the cavity, which generates an array of strong pulses (with 1,000 - 10,000 atoms in each, the array's duty cycle ~ 30%) when the soliton periodically hits the valve., Comment: J. of Physics B: At. Mol. Opt. Physics, in press