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We attempt to measure the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614 in over two million low-resolution spectra of cool stars from LAMOST. Based on the DIB measurements, the correlation between DIBs and extinction, the kinematics of DIBs, and the Galactic distribution of DIBs are reviewed and investigated from the perspective of statistics. A pipeline is developed to measure the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614 in the LAMOST low-resolution spectra. We obtain the DIB measurements of spectra of late-type stars from LAMOST, and screen out 176,831, 13,473 and 110,152 high-quality (HQ) measurements of the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614, respectively, corresponding to 142,074, 11,480 and 85,301 unique sources. Utilizing these HQ measurements, we present the Galactic maps of the DIBs $\lambda$5780 and $\lambda$6614 in the northern sky for the first time. The central wavelengths of the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614 in air are determined to be 5780.48 $\pm$ 0.01, 5796.94 $\pm$ 0.02 and 6613.64 $\pm$ 0.01 Å, respectively, based on their kinematics. The equivalent widths of these three DIBs per unit extinction are statistically fitted to be 0.565, 0.176 and 0.256 Å/mag. As a part of our work, three catalogs of the HQ measurements for the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614 are provided online. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest number of measurements of these three DIBs to date. It is also the first time that the Galactic maps of the DIBs $\lambda$5780 and $\lambda$6614 in the northern hemisphere are presented, and the central wavelengths of the DIBs $\lambda$5780, $\lambda$5797 and $\lambda$6614 are estimated from the kinematics.

In our research, we have developed a novel mechanism that allows for a significant reduction in the smallest sampling unit of digital image sensors (DIS) to as small as 1/16th of a pixel, through measuring the intra-pixel quantum efficiency for the first time and recomputing the image. Employing our method, the physical sampling resolution of DIS can be enhanced by 16 times. The method has undergone rigorous testing in real-world imaging scenarios.

We present a series of studies on the connection between galaxy morphology and the structure of host dark-matter (DM) haloes using cosmological simulations. In this work, we introduce a new kinematic decomposition scheme that features physical identification of morphological components, enabling robust separation of thin and thick discs; and measure a wide range of halo properties, including their locations in the cosmic web, internal structures, and assembly histories. Our analysis of the TNG50 simulation reveals that the orbital-circularity threshold for disc differentiation varies across galaxies, with systematic trends in mass and redshift, so the widely used decomposition method with constant circularity cuts is oversimplified and underestimates thin disc at JWST redshifts. The energy threshold between the stellar halo and the inner galaxy is also a function of mass and redshift, minimizing at the sub-Galactic halo mass, where the circularity threshold peaks. Revisiting the issue of galaxy size predictor, we show that disc sizes in TNG50 exhibit correlations with three structural parameters besides virial mass and redshift: 1) a positive correlation with halo spin $\lambda$ across redshifts -- stronger than previously reported for zoom-in simulations but still weaker than the simple $r_{1/2}/R_{\rm vir} \propto \lambda$ scaling; 2) an anti-correlation with DM concentration $c$ that is well described by $r_{1/2}/R_{\rm vir} \propto c^{-0.7}$ even when $c$ is measured in the DM only run; 3) more actively accreting haloes having slightly larger discs, as well as more significant stellar haloes and lower thin-to-thick ratio. Disc mass fraction is higher in rounder haloes and in cosmic knots and filaments, implying that disc development needs both stable halo conditions and continuous material supply. Our methodology is public and adaptable to other simulations.

A small component of dark matter (DM) that is strongly interacting with the standard model sector is consistent with various experimental observations. Despite the small abundance, strongly-interacting DM can lead to pronounced signals in DM direct detection experiments. We study Belle II sensitivity on strongly-interacting DM that has a MeV-GeV mass and couples with electrons. By taking into account the substantial interactions between DM and electrons within detectors, we compute the ``ceiling'' of the mono-photon signature at Belle II, beyond which the mono-photon channel loses its sensitivity, and visible ECL clusters due to DM scatterings assume significance. We study two ECL signatures for strongly-interacting DM: the mono-cluster and the di-cluster channels. To carry out detailed calculations and to compare with other constraints, we consider DM models with light mediators, as they naturally lead to sizable interaction cross sections. We compute exclusion regions for the di-cluster, mono-cluster, and mono-photon channels. We find that Belle II (with currently accumulated data of 362 fb$^{-1}$) can rule out a significant portion of the parameter space above the ceilings of the constraints from various DM direct detection and neutrino experiments, for the vector mediator case with mass $\gtrsim 10$ MeV. Belle II also offers superior constraints on new light particles compared to PBH for the scalar mediator with mass $\gtrsim 10$ MeV.

Gravitational-wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is a space-borne instrument dedicated to monitoring high-energy transients, including Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) and Terrestrial Electron Beams (TEBs). We implemented a TGF/TEB search algorithm for GECAM, with which 147 bright TGFs, 2 typical TEBs and 2 special TEB-like events are identified during an effective observation time of $\sim$9 months. We show that, with gamma-ray and charged particle detectors, GECAM can effectively identify and distinguish TGFs and TEBs, and measure their temporal and spectral properties in detail. A very high TGF-lightning association rate of $\sim$80\% is obtained between GECAM and GLD360 in east Asia region.

The properties of globular clusters (GCs) contain valuable information of their host galaxies and dark-matter halos. In the remarkable example of ultra-diffuse galaxy, NGC5846-UDG1, the GC population exhibits strong radial mass segregation, indicative of dynamical-friction-driven orbital decay, which opens the possibility of using imaging data alone to constrain the dark-matter content of the galaxy. To explore this possibility, we develop a semi-analytical model of GC evolution, which starts from the initial mass function, the initial structure-mass relation, and the initial spatial distribution of the GC progenitors, and follows the effects of dynamical friction, tidal evolution, and two-body relaxation. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo, we forward-model the GCs in a NGC5846-UDG1-like potential to match the observed GC mass, size, and spatial distributions, and to constrain the profile of the host halo and the origin of the GCs. We find that, with the assumptions of zero mass segregation when the star clusters were born, NGC5846-UDG1 is relatively dark-matter poor compared to what is expected from stellar-to-halo-mass relations, and its halo concentration is lower than the cosmological average, irrespective of having a cuspy or a cored profile. Its GC population has an initial spatial distribution more extended than the smooth stellar distribution. We discuss the results in the context of scaling laws of galaxy-halo connections, and warn against naively using the GC-abundance-halo-mass relation to infer the halo mass of UDGs. Our model is generally applicable to GC-rich dwarf galaxies, and is publicly available at https://github.com/JiangFangzhou/GCevo.

One-zone Galactic Chemical Evolution (GCE) models have provided useful insights on a great wealth of average abundance patterns in many environments, especially for the Milky Way and its satellites. However, the scatter of such abundance patterns is still a challenging aspect to reproduce. The leading hypothesis is that dynamics is a likely major source of the dispersion. In this work we test another hypothesis, namely that different assumptions on yield modeling may be at play simultaneously. We compare whether the abundance patterns spanned by the models are consistent with those observed in Galactic data. First, we test the performance of recent yield tabulations, and we show which of these tabulations best fit Galactic stellar abundances. We then group the models and test if yield combinations match data scatter and standard deviation. On a fixed Milky-Way-like parametrization of NuPyCEE, we test a selection of yields for the three dominant yield sets: low-to-intermediate mass stars, massive stars, and Type Ia supernovae. We also include the production of r-process elements by neutron star mergers. We explore the statistical properties spanned by such yields. We identify the differences and commonalities among yield sets. We define criteria that estimate whether an element is in agreement with the data, or if the model overestimates or underestimates it in various redshift bins. While it is true that yields are a major source of uncertainty in GCE models, the scatter of abundances in stellar spectra cannot be explained by a simple averaging of runs across yield prescriptions.

GRB 221009A is the brightest gamma-ray burst ever detected since the discovery of this kind of energetic explosions. However, an accurate measurement of the prompt emission properties of this burst is very challenging due to its exceptional brightness. With joint observations of \textitInsight-HXMT and GECAM-C, we made an unprecedentedly accurate measurement of the emission during the first $\sim$1800 s of GRB 221009A, including its precursor, main emission (ME, which dominates the burst in flux), flaring emission and early afterglow, in the hard X-ray to soft gamma-ray band from $\sim$ 10 keV to $\sim$ 6 MeV. Based on the GECAM-C unsaturated data of the ME, we measure a record-breaking isotropic equivalent energy ($E_{\rm iso}$) of $\bf \sim 1.5 \times 10^{55}$ erg, which is about eight times the total rest-mass energy of the Sun. The early afterglow data require a significant jet break between 650 s and 1100 s, most likely at $\sim950$ s from the afterglow starting time $T_{AG}$, which corresponds to a jet opening angle of $\sim {0.7^\circ} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/8}$, where $n$ is the ambient medium density in units of $\rm cm^{-3}$ and $\eta_\gamma$ is the ratio between $\gamma$-ray energy and afterglow kinetic energy. The beaming-corrected total $\gamma$-ray energy $E_{\gamma}$ is $\sim 1.15 \times10^{51} \ (\eta_\gamma n)^{1/4}$ erg, which is typical for long GRBs. These results suggest that this GRB may have a special central engine, which could launch and collimate a very narrowly beamed jet with an ordinary energy budget, leading to exceptionally luminous gamma-ray radiation per unit solid angle. Alternatively, more GRBs might have such a narrow and bright beam, which are missed by an unfavorable viewing angle or have been detected without distance measurement.

Very metal-poor (VMP, [Fe/H]<-2.0) stars offer a wealth of information on the nature and evolution of elemental production in the early galaxy and universe. The upcoming China Space Station Telescope (CSST) will provide us with a large amount of spectroscopic data that may contain plenty of VMP stars, and thus it is crucial to determine the stellar atmospheric parameters ($T_{eff}$, $\log g$, and [Fe/H]) for low-resolution spectra similar to the CSST spectra (R~200). In this paper, a two-dimensional Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model with three convolutional layers and two fully connected layers is constructed. The principal aim of this work is to measure the ability of this model to estimate stellar parameters on low-resolution (R~200) spectra and to identify VMP stars so that we can better search for VMP stars in the spectra observed by CSST.We mainly use 10,008 observed spectra of VMP stars from LAMOST DR3, and 16,638 spectra of common stars ([Fe/H]>-2.0) from LAMOST DR8 for the experiment and make comparisons. All spectra are reduced to R~200 to match the resolution of the CSST and are preprocessed and collapsed into two-dimensional spectra for input to the CNN model. The results show that the MAE values are 99.40 K for $T_{eff}$, 0.22 dex for $\log g$, 0.14 dex for [Fe/H], and 0.26 dex for [C/Fe], respectively. Besides, the CNN model efficiently identifies VMP stars with a precision of 94.77%. The validation and practicality of this model are also tested on the MARCS synthetic spectra. This paper powerfully demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed CNN model in estimating stellar parameters for low-resolution spectra (R~200) and recognizing VMP stars that are of interest for stellar population and galactic evolution work.

This is the first of a series of papers that will introduce a user-friendly, detailed, and modular GALactic Chemical Evolution Model, GalCEM, that tracks isotope masses as a function of time in a given galaxy. The list of tracked isotopes automatically adapts to the complete set provided by the input yields. The present iteration of GalCEM tracks 86 elements broken down in 451 isotopes. The prescription includes massive stars, low-to-intermediate mass stars, and Type Ia supernovae as enrichment channels. We have developed a preprocessing tool that extracts multi-dimensional interpolation curves from the input yield tables. These interpolation curves improve the computation speeds of the full convolution integrals, which are computed for each isotope and for each enrichment channel. We map the integrand quantities onto consistent array grids in order to perform the numerical integration at each time step. The differential equation is solved with a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. We constrain our analysis to the evolution of all the light and intermediate elements from carbon to zinc, and lithium. Our results are consistent up to the extremely metal poor regime with Galactic abundances. We provide tools to track the mass rate change of individual isotopes on a typical spiral galaxy with a final baryonic mass of $5\times 10^{10} M_{\odot}$. Future iterations of the work will extend to the full periodic table by including the enrichment from neutron-capture channels as well as spatially-dependent treatments of galaxy properties. GalCEM is publicly available at https://github.com/egjergo/GalCEM/

Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is a pair of microsatellites (i.e. GECAM-A and GECAM-B) dedicated to monitoring gamma-ray transients including gravitational waves high-energy electromagnetic counterparts, Gamma-ray Bursts, Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters, Solar Flares and Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes. Since launch in December 2020, GECAM-B has detected hundreds of astronomical and terrestrial events. For these bursts, localization is the key for burst identification and classification as well as follow-up observations in multi-wavelength. Here, we propose a Bayesian localization method with Poisson data with Gaussian background profile likelihood to localize GECAM bursts based on the burst counts distribution in detectors with different orientations. We demonstrate that this method can work well for all kinds of bursts, especially for extremely short ones. In addition, we propose a new method to estimate the systematic error of localization based on a confidence level test, which can overcome some problems of the existing method in literature. We validate this method by Monte Carlo simulations, and then apply it to a burst sample with accurate location and find that the mean value of the systematic error of GECAM-B localization is $\sim 2.5^{\circ}$. By considering this systematic error, we can obtain a reliable localization probability map for GECAM bursts. Our methods can be applied to other gamma-ray monitors.

Fast and reliable localization of high-energy transients is crucial for characterizing the burst properties and guiding the follow-up observations. Localization based on the relative counts of different detectors has been widely used for all-sky gamma-ray monitors. There are two major methods for this counts distribution localization: $\chi^{2}$ minimization method and the Bayesian method. Here we propose a modified Bayesian method that could take advantage of both the accuracy of the Bayesian method and the simplicity of the $\chi^{2}$ method. With comprehensive simulations, we find that our Bayesian method with Poisson likelihood is generally more applicable for various bursts than $\chi^{2}$ method, especially for weak bursts. We further proposed a location-spectrum iteration approach based on the Bayesian inference, which could alleviate the problems caused by the spectral difference between the burst and location templates. Our method is very suitable for scenarios with limited computation resources or time-sensitive applications, such as in-flight localization software, and low-latency localization for rapid follow-up observations.

We have performed the first direct measurement of two resonances of the $^7$Be($\alpha,\gamma$)$^{11}$C reaction with unknown strengths using an intense radioactive $^7$Be beam and the DRAGON recoil separator. We report on the first measurement of the 1155 and 1110 keV resonance strengths of $1.73 \pm 0.25(stat.) \pm 0.40(syst.)$ eV and $125 ^{+27}_{-25}(stat.) \pm 15(syst.)$ meV, respectively. The present results have reduced the uncertainty in the $^7$Be($\alpha,\gamma$)$^{11}$C reaction rate to $\sim$ 9.4-10.7% over T = 1.5-3 GK, which is relevant for nucleosynthesis in the neutrino-driven outflows of core-collapse supernovae ($\nu p$-process). We find no effect of the new, constrained reaction rate on $\nu p$-process nucleosynthesis.

A possible mechanism to explain the origin of the light $p$-nuclei in the Galaxy is the nucleosynthesis in the proton-rich neutrino-driven wind ejecta of core-collapse supernovae via the $\nu p$-process. However this production scenario is very sensitive to the underlying supernova dynamics and the nuclear physics input. As far as the nuclear uncertainties are concerned, the breakout from the $pp$-chains via the $^7$Be($\alpha,\gamma$)$^{11}$C reaction has been identified as an important link which can influence the nuclear flow and therefore the efficiency of the $\nu p$-process. However its reaction rate is poorly known over the relevant temperature range, T = 1.5-3 GK. We report on the first direct measurement of two resonances of the $^7$Be($\alpha,\gamma$)$^{11}$C reaction with previously unknown strengths using an intense radioactive $^7$Be beam from the ISAC facility and the DRAGON recoil separator in inverse kinematics. We have decreased the $^7$Be($\alpha,\gamma$)$^{11}$C reaction rate uncertainty to $\sim$ 9.4-10.7% over the relevant temperature region.

In this work, the support vector machine (SVM) method is adopted to separate BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) and flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) in the plots of photon spectrum index against the photon flux, $\alpha_{\rm ph} \sim {\rm log}\,F$, that of photon spectrum index against the variability index, $\alpha_{\rm ph} \sim {\rm log}\, \textit{V\!I}$, and that of variability index against the photon flux, ${\rm log}\,{V\!I} \sim {\rm log}\,F$. Then we used the dividing lines to tell BL Lacs from FSRQs in the blazars candidates of uncertain types from \textitFermi/LAT catalogue. Our main conclusions are: 1. We separate BL Lacs and FSRQs by $\alpha_{\rm ph} = -0.123\,{\rm log}\,F + 1.170$ in the $\alpha_{\rm ph} \sim {\rm log}\,F$ plot, $\alpha_{\rm ph} = -0.161\,{\rm log}\,{V\!I} + 2.594$ in the $\alpha_{\rm ph} \sim {\rm log}\,{V\!I}$ plot, and ${\rm log}\,{V\!I} = 0.792\,{\rm log}\,F + 9.203$ in the ${\rm log}\,{V\!I} \sim {\rm log}\,F$ plot. 2. We obtained 932 BL Lac candidates and possible BL Lac candidates, and 585 FSRQ candidates and possible FSRQ candidates. 3. Some discussions are given for comparisons with those in literature.

The Transition Edge Sensor is extremely sensitive to the change of temperature, combined with the high-Z metal of a certain thickness, it can realize the high energy resolution measurement of particles such as X-rays. X-rays with energies below 10 keV have very weak penetrating ability, so only a few microns thick of gold or bismuth can obtain quantum efficiency higher than 70\%. Therefore, the entire structure of the TES X-ray detector in this energy range can be realized in the microfabrication process. However, for X-rays or gamma rays from 10 keV to 200 keV, sub-millimeter absorber layers are required, which cannot be realized by microfabrication process. This paper first briefly introduces a set of TES X-ray detectors and their auxiliary systems built by ShanghaiTech University, then focus on the introduction of the TES $\gamma$-ray detector, with absorber based on an sub-millimeter lead-tin alloy sphere. The detector has a quantum efficiency above 70\% near 100 keV, and an energy resolution of about 161.5eV@59.5keV.

Background The Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) is primarily designed to spot gamma-ray bursts corresponding to gravitational waves. In order to achieve stable observations from various astronomical phenomena, the payload performance need to be monitored during the in-orbit operation. Method This article describes the design and implementation of GECAM satellite payload performance monitoring (GPPM) software. The software extracts the payload status and telescope observations (light curves, energy spectrums, characteristic peak fitting of energy spectrums, etc) from the payload data. Considering the large amount of payload status parameters in the engineering data, we have designed a method of parameter processing based on the configuration tables. This method can deal with the frequent changes of the data formats and facilitate program maintenance. Payload status and performance are monitored through defined thresholds and monitoring reports. The entire software is implemented in python language and the huge amount of observation data is stored in MongoDB. Conclusion The design and implementation of GPPM software have been completed, tested with ground and in-orbit payload data. The software can monitor the performance of GECAM payload effectively. The overall design of the software and the data processing method can be applied to other satellites.

One month after launching Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM), a bright thermonuclear X-ray burst from 4U~0614+09, was observed on January 24, 2021. We report the time-resolved spectroscopy of the burst and a burst oscillation detection at 413 Hz with a fractional amplitude 3.4\% (rms). This coincides with the burst oscillation previously discovered with \textitSwift/BAT \citepStrohmayer2008, and therefore confirms the spin frequency of this source. This burst is the brightest one in the normal bursts (except the superburst) ever detected from 4U~0614+09, which leads to an upper limit of distance estimation as 3.1 kpc. The folded light curve during the burst oscillation shows a multi-peak structure, which is the first case observed during a single burst oscillation in nonpulsating sources. The multi-peak profile could be due to additional harmonics of the burst oscillation, which is corresponding to several brighter/fainter spots at the stellar surface.

An analysis is given of the Belle II sensitivities and NA64 constraints on the sub-GeV Dirac dark matter that interacts with charged leptons. We consider two different types of interactions between sub-GeV Dirac dark matter and the charged leptons: the EFT operators and the light vector mediators. We compute the Belle II mono-photon sensitivities on sub-GeV dark matter with 50 ab$^{-1}$ data which are expected to be accumulated in the full Belle II runs. Although the Belle II mono-photon sensitivities on the EFT operators are of similar size as the LEP constraints, Belle II can probe new parameter space of the light vector mediator models that are unexplored by LEP. For both the EFT operators and the light vector mediator models, the Belle II mono-photon sensitivities can be several orders of magnitude stronger than the current dark matter direct detection limits, as well as the white dwarf limits. The light vector mediator can also be directly searched for by reconstructing the invariant mass of its di-lepton decay final states at Belle II, which is found to be complementary to the mono-photon channel. We compute the NA64 constraints on the sub-GeV Dirac dark matter and provide analytic expressions of the dark matter cross section in the Weizsäcker-Williams approximation, for the EFT operators, and for the light vector mediator models. We find that the current NA64 data (with $2.84 \times 10^{11}$ electron-on-target events) provide strong constraints on sub-GeV dark matter. Although the NA64 constraints are found to be about one order of magnitude smaller than the Belle II sensitivities for the EFT operators, NA64 can probe some regions of the parameter space in the light vector mediator models that are beyond the reach of Belle II.

The phasing parameter F determines the relative phasing between satellites in different orbital planes and thereby affects the relative position of the satellites in a constellation. The collisions between satellites within the constellation can be avoided if the minimum distance among them is large. From among the possible values of F in a constellation, a value of F is desired that leads to the maximum value of the minimum distance between satellites. We investigate F for two biggest upcoming satellite constellations including Starlink Phase 1 Version 3 and Kuiper Shell 2. No existing work or FCC filing provides a value of F that is suitable for these two constellations. We look for the best value of F in these constellations that provides the maximum value of the minimum distance to ensure intra-constellation avoidance of collisions between satellites. To this end, we simulate each constellation for each value of F to find its best value based on ranking. Out of the 22 and 36 possible values of F for Starlink Phase 1 Version 3 and Kuiper Shell 2, respectively, it is observed that the best value of F with highest ranking is 17 and 11 that leads to the largest minimum distance between satellites of 61.83 km and 55.89 km in these constellations, respectively.

We report the first (in)elastic scattering measurement of $^{25}\mathrm{Al}+p$ with the capability to select and measure in a broad energy range the proton resonances in $^{26}$Si contributing to the $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ reaction at type I x-ray burst energies. We measured spin-parities of four resonances above the $\alpha$ threshold of $^{26}$Si that are found to strongly impact the $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ rate. The new rate advances a state-of-the-art model to remarkably reproduce light curves of the GS 1826$-$24 clocked burster with mean deviation $<9$ % and permits us to discover a strong correlation between the He abundance in the accreting envelope of photospheric radius expansion burster and the dominance of $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ branch.

We propose a new model to determine the ages and masses of red giant branch (RGB) stars from the low-resolution large sky area multi-object fiber spectroscopic telescope (LAMOST) spectra. The ages of RGB stars are difficult to determine using classical isochrone fitting techniques in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, because isochrones of RGB stars are tightly crowned. With the help of the asteroseismic method, we can determine the masses and ages of RGB stars accurately. Using the ages derived from the asteroseismic method, we train a deep learning model based on DenseNet to calculate the ages of RGB stars directly from their spectra. We then apply this model to determine the ages of 512 272 RGB stars from LAMOST DR7 spectra (see http://dr7.lamost.org/). The results show that our model can estimate the ages of RGB stars from low-resolution spectra with an accuracy of 24.3%. The results on the open clusters M 67, Berkeley 32, and NGC 2420 show that our model performs well in estimating the ages of RGB stars. Through comparison, we find that our method performs better than other methods in determining the ages of RGB stars. The proposed method can be used in the stellar parameter pipeline of upcoming large surveys such as 4MOST, WEAVES, and MOONS.

Interaction-powered supernovae (SNe) explode within an optically-thick circumstellar medium (CSM) that could be ejected during eruptive events. To identify and characterize such pre-explosion outbursts we produce forced-photometry light curves for 196 interacting SNe, mostly of Type IIn, detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility between early 2018 and June 2020. Extensive tests demonstrate that we only expect a few false detections among the 70,000 analyzed pre-explosion images after applying quality cuts and bias corrections. We detect precursor eruptions prior to 18 Type IIn SNe and prior to the Type Ibn SN2019uo. Precursors become brighter and more frequent in the last months before the SN and month-long outbursts brighter than magnitude -13 occur prior to 25% (5 - 69%, 95% confidence range) of all Type IIn SNe within the final three months before the explosion. With radiative energies of up to $10^{49}\,\text{erg}$, precursors could eject $\sim1\,\text{M}_\odot$ of material. Nevertheless, SNe with detected precursors are not significantly more luminous than other SNe IIn and the characteristic narrow hydrogen lines in their spectra typically originate from earlier, undetected mass-loss events. The long precursor durations require ongoing energy injection and they could, for example, be powered by interaction or by a continuum-driven wind. Instabilities during the neon and oxygen burning phases are predicted to launch precursors in the final years to months before the explosion; however, the brightest precursor is 100 times more energetic than anticipated.

It is generally supposed that a transition from the normal decay phase (decay slope $\sim -1$) to a steeper phase (decay slope $\sim -2$) could be suggested as a jet break. The jet opening angle $\theta_{\rm jet}$ is then calculated from the jet break time of the afterglow light curve. This allows the derivation of the collimation-corrected energy $E_{\rm jet}$ of those GRBs. We extensively searched for the GRBs with jet break features from multi-wavelength afterglow light curves, and 138 GRBs with significant breaks were collected. The jet break times of those GRBs mainly range from 1000 s to $10^6$ s, and the distribution of the collimation-corrected energy $E_{\rm jet}$ peaks at $\sim10^{50}$ erg. We also confirmed the $E_{\rm \gamma,iso}-E_{\rm p,i}$, $E_{\rm jet}-E_{\rm p,i}$ and $E_{\rm \gamma,iso}-\theta_{\rm jet}$ relations, and found $E_{\rm \gamma,iso}-T_{\rm j,z}-E_{\rm p,i}$ relation remains tight with more multi-wavelength data. This tight $E_{\rm \gamma,iso}-T_{\rm j,z}-E_{\rm p,i}$ relation is also conformed by different groups of our selected GRBs in the paper. In addition, another two new and tighter correlations among $E_{\rm jet}-T_{\rm j,z}-E_{\rm p,i}$ are well confirmed for different circumburst mediums in this paper. We suggest that those tight three-parameter correlations are more physical, and could be widely applied to constrain the cosmological parameters.

We report follow-up observations of four transiting exoplanets, TRES-2b, HAT-P-22b, HAT-P-36b and XO-2b, as part of the Original Research By Young Twinkle Students (ORBYTS) programme. These observations were taken using the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network's (LCOGT) robotic 0.4 m telescopes and were analysed using the HOlomon Photometric Software (HOPS). Such observations are key for ensuring accurate transit times for upcoming telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Twinkle and Ariel, which may seek to characterise the atmospheres of these planets. The data have been uploaded to ExoClock and a significant portion of this work has been completed by secondary school students in London.

We present a survey of the early evolution of 12 Type IIn supernovae (SNe IIn) in the Ultra-Violet (UV) and visible light. We use this survey to constrain the geometry of the circumstellar material (CSM) surrounding SN IIn explosions, which may shed light on their progenitor diversity. In order to distinguish between aspherical and spherical circumstellar material (CSM), we estimate the blackbody radius temporal evolution of the SNe IIn of our sample, following the method introduced by Soumagnac et al. We find that higher luminosity objects tend to show evidence for aspherical CSM. Depending on whether this correlation is due to physical reasons or to some selection bias, we derive a lower limit between 35% and 66% on the fraction of SNe IIn showing evidence for aspherical CSM. This result suggests that asphericity of the CSM surrounding SNe IIn is common - consistent with data from resolved images of stars undergoing considerable mass loss. It should be taken into account for more realistic modelling of these events.

We propose to search for millicharged particles in electron colliders operated with the center-of-mass energies at ${\cal O}$(1-10) GeV, which include Belle II, BESIII, BaBar, and also the proposed experiment STCF. We use the monophoton final state at electron colliders to probe the parameter space of millicharged particles, that is spanned by millicharge $\epsilon$ and mass $m$. We find that electron colliders have sensitivity to the previously unexplored parameter space for millicharged particles with MeV-GeV mass: $\epsilon \lesssim {\cal O}(10^{-1})$ for $0.5$ GeV $\lesssim m \lesssim 3.5$ GeV in BaBar, $\epsilon \lesssim {\cal O}(10^{-3})$ for $0.1$ GeV $\lesssim m \lesssim 1.5$ GeV in BESIII, $\epsilon \lesssim 10^{-3}-10^{-2}$ for $0.1$ GeV $\lesssim m \lesssim 4$ GeV in Belle II, and $\epsilon \lesssim {\cal O}(10^{-4})$ for $1$ MeV $\lesssim m \lesssim 1$ GeV in STCF.

The Gamma-Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID) is a space mission concept dedicated to monitoring the transient gamma-ray sky in the energy range from 10 keV to 2 MeV using scintillation detectors onboard CubeSats in low Earth orbits. The primary targets of GRID are the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the local universe. The scientific goal of GRID is, in synergy with ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors such as LIGO and VIRGO, to accumulate a sample of GRBs associated with the merger of two compact stars and study jets and related physics of those objects. It also involves observing and studying other gamma-ray transients such as long GRBs, soft gamma-ray repeaters, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, and solar flares. With multiple CubeSats in various orbits, GRID is unaffected by the Earth occultation and serves as a full-time and all-sky monitor. Assuming a horizon of 200 Mpc for ground-based GW detectors, we expect to see a few associated GW-GRB events per year. With about 10 CubeSats in operation, GRID is capable of localizing a faint GRB like 170817A with a 90% error radius of about 10 degrees, through triangulation and flux modulation. GRID is proposed and developed by students, with considerable contribution from undergraduate students, and will remain operated as a student project in the future. The current GRID collaboration involves more than 20 institutes and keeps growing. On August 29th, the first GRID detector onboard a CubeSat was launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit and is currently under test.

We present extensive optical observations of a Type IIn supernova (SN) 2010jl for the first 1.5 years after the discovery. The UBVRI light curves demonstrated an interesting two-stage evolution during the nebular phase, which almost flatten out after about 90 days from the optical maximum. SN 2010jl has one of the highest intrinsic H_alpha luminosity ever recorded for a SN IIn, especially at late phase, suggesting a strong interaction of SN ejecta with the dense circumstellar material (CSM) ejected by the progenitor. This is also indicated by the remarkably strong Balmer lines persisting in the optical spectra. One interesting spectral evolution about SN 2010jl is the appearance of asymmetry of the Balmer lines. These lines can be well decomposed into a narrow component and an intermediate-width component. The intermediate-width component showed a steady increase in both strength and blueshift with time until t ~ 400 days after maximum, but it became less blueshifted at t ~ 500 days when the line profile appeared relatively symmetric again. Owing to that a pure reddening effect will lead to a sudden decline of the light curves and a progressive blueshift of the spectral lines, we therefore propose that the asymmetric profiles of H lines seen in SN 2010jl is unlikely due to the extinction by newly formed dust inside the ejecta, contrary to the explanation by some early studies. Based on a simple CSM-interaction model, we speculate that the progenitor of SN 2010jl may suffer a gigantic mass loss (~ 30-50 M_sun) in a few decades before explosion. Considering a slow moving stellar wind (e.g., ~ 28 km/s) inferred for the preexisting, dense CSM shell and the extremely high mass-loss rate (1-2 M_sun per yr), we suggest that the progenitor of SN 2010jl might have experienced a red supergiant stage and explode finally as a post-red supergiant star with an initial mass above 30-40 M_sun.

We report on an 105 ks Suzaku observation of the supernova remnant CTA 1 (G119.5+10.2). The Suzaku soft X-ray observation was carried out with both timing mode and imaging mode. A ~ 10' extended feature, which is interpreted as a bow-shock component of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN), is revealed in this deep observation for the first time. The nebular spectrum can be modelled by a power-law with a photon index of ~ 1.8 which suggests a slow synchrotron cooling scenario. The photon index is approximately constant across this extended feature. We compare and discuss our observations of this complex nebula with previous X-ray investigations. We do not obtain any significant pulsation from the central pulsar in the soft (0.2-12 keV) and hard (10-60 keV) X-ray data. The non-detection is mainly due to the loss of the precise imaging ability to accurately determine the source contribution. The spectra of XIS and HXD can be directly connected without a significant spectral break according to our analysis. Future observations of NuSTAR and Astro-H would be able to resolve the contamination and provide an accurate hard X-ray measurement of CTA 1.

To investigate the missing compact star of Supernova 1987A, we analyzed both the cooling and the heating processes of a possible compact star based on the upper limit of observational X-ray luminosity. From the cooling process we found that a solid quark-cluster star, which has a stiffer equation of state than that of conventional liquid quark star, has a heat capacity much smaller than a neutron star. It can cool down quickly, which can naturally explain the non-detection of a point source (neutron star or quark star) in X-ray band. On the other hand, we consider the heating process from magnetospheric activity and possible accretion, and obtain some constraints to the parameters of a possible pulsar. We conclude that a solid quark-cluster star can be fine with the observational limit in a large and acceptable parameter space. A pulsar with a short period and a strong magnetic field (or with a long period and a weak field) would has luminosity higher than the luminosity limit if the optical depth is not large enough to hide the compact star. The constraints of the pulsar parameters can be tested if the central compact object in 1987A is discovered by advanced facilities in the future.

The Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT) is a balloon-borne Compton telescope designed for the study of astrophysical sources in the soft gamma-ray regime (200 keV--20 MeV). NCT's ten high-purity germanium crossed-strip detectors measure the deposited energies and three-dimensional positions of gamma-ray interactions in the sensitive volume, and this information is used to restrict the initial photon to a circle on the sky using the Compton scatter technique. Thus NCT is able to perform spectroscopy, imaging, and polarization analysis on soft gamma-ray sources. NCT is one of the next generation of Compton telescopes --- so-called compact Compton telescopes (CCTs) --- which can achieve effective areas comparable to COMPTEL's with an instrument that is a fraction of the size. The Crab Nebula was the primary target for the second flight of the NCT instrument, which occurred on 17--18 May 2009 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Analysis of 29.3 ks of data from the flight reveals an image of the Crab at a significance of 4-sigma. This is the first reported detection of an astrophysical source by a CCT.

We present and interpret several new X-ray features of the X-ray pulsar PSR J1838-0655. The X-ray data are obtained from the archival data of CHANDRA, RXTE, and SUZAKU. We combine all these X-ray data and fit the spectra with different models. We find that the joint spectra are difficult to fit with a single power law; a broken power-law model with a break at around 6.5 keV can improve the fit significantly. The photon index changes from $\Gamma$ = 1.0 (below 6.5 keV) to $\Gamma$ = 1.5 (above 6.5 keV); this indicates a softer spectral behaviour at hard X-rays. The X-ray flux at 2-20 keV is found to be 1.6x10^-11 ergs cm^-2 s^-1. The conversion efficiency from the spin-down luminosity is ~ 0.9% at 0.8-10 keV, which is much higher than that (~ 10^-3% - 10^-4%) of the pulsars that show similar timing properties. We discuss non-thermal radiation mechanisms for the observed high X-ray conversion efficiency and find that emission from the magnetosphere of a greatly inclined rotator is the most favorable interpretation for the conversion rate and the pulse profiles at X-ray bands. A line feature close to 6.65 keV is also detected in the spectra of SUZAKU/XIS; it might be the K$_\alpha$ emission of highly ionised Fe surrounding the pulsar.

Millisecond dips in the RXTE/PCA archival data of Sco X-1 taken from 1996 to 2002 were reported recently. Those dips were found to be most likely caused by instrumental dead time but may also contain some true astronomical events, which were interpreted as the occultation of X-rays from Sco X-1 by Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO) of 100-m size. Here we report the results of search for millisecond dip events with the new RXTE/PCA data of Sco X-1 taken in year 2007. Adopting the same selection criteria as that in the previous study, we found only 3 dip events in 72-ks data, much fewer than the 107 events found in the 560-ks data taken from 1996 to 2002 reported earlier. The new data provides more detailed information of individual `very large events' (VLEs), which is not available in the old archival data. Although the number of VLEs does not obviously increase during the occurrence of dip events, all the 3 dip events are coincident in time with VLEs that have no flags set for any of the propane or the 6 main xenon anodes. It is a strong indication of instrumental effects. No significant dips which might be real occultation by 60 -- 100 m TNOs were observed. With only 72-ks data, however, the previously proposed possibility that about 10 percent of the dip events might not be instrumental still cannot be strictly excluded. Using the absence of those anomalous VLEs as the criterion for identifying non-instrumental dip events, we found, at a lower confidence level, 4 dip events of duration 8 - 10 ms in the 72-ks data. Upper limits to the size distribution of TNOs at the small size end are suggested.

Millisecond dips in the RXTE/PCA light curve of Sco X-1 were reported recently (Chang et al. 2006), which were interpreted as the occultation of X-rays from Sco X-1 caused by Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNO) of hundred-meter size. Inconclusive signatures of possible instrumental effects in many of these dip events related to high-energy cosmic rays were later found (Jones et al. 2006) and the TNO interpretation became shaky. Here we report more detailed analysis aiming at distinguishing true occultation events from those related to cosmic rays. Based on some indicative criteria derived from housekeeping data and two-channel spectral information, we suggest that about 10% of the dips are probable events of occultation. The total number of TNOs of size from 60 m to 100 m is estiamted to be about 10^15 accordingly. Limited by the coarser time resolution of standard data modes of RXTE/PCA, however, definite results cannot be obtained. Adequately configured observations with RXTE or other new instruments in the future are very much desired.

The escape rates of the biaxial single domain spin particles with and without an applied magnetic field are investigated. Using the strict potential field description of spin systems developed by Ulyanov and Zaslavskii we obtain new effective Hamiltonians which are considered to be in exact spin-coordinate correspondence unlike the well studied effective Hamiltonians with the approximate correspondence. The sharp first-order transition is found in both cases. The phase diagram of the transitions depending on the anisotropy constant and the external field is also given.