No Arabic abstract
Multiwavelength observations are reported here of the Be/X-ray binary pulsar system GRO J1008-57. Over ten years worth of data are gathered together to show that the periodic X-ray outbursts are dependant on both the binary motion and the size of the circumstellar disk. In the first instance an accurate orbital solution is determined from pulse periods, and in the second case the strength and shape of the Halpha emission line is shown to be a valuable indicator of disk size and its behaviour. Furthermore, the shape of the emission line permits a direct determination of the disk size which is in good agreement with theoretical estimates. A detailed study of the pulse period variations during outbursts determined the binary period to be 247.8, in good agreement with the period determined from the recurrence of the outbursts.
I study the behaviour of the maximum rms fractional amplitude, $r_{rm max}$ and the maximum coherence, $Q_{rm max}$, of the kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (kHz QPOs) in a dozen low-mass X-ray binaries. I find that: (i) The maximum rms amplitudes of the lower and the upper kHz QPO, $r^{ell}_{rm max}$ and $r^{rm u}_{rm max}$, respectively, decrease more or less exponentially with increasing luminosity of the source; (ii) the maximum coherence of the lower kHz QPO, $Q^{ell}_{rm max}$, first increases and then decreases exponentially with luminosity; (iii) the maximum coherence of the upper kHz QPO, $Q^{rm u}_{rm max}$, is more or less independent of luminosity; and (iv) $r_{rm max}$ and $Q_{rm max}$ show the opposite behaviour with hardness of the source, consistent with the fact that there is a general anticorrelation between luminosity and spectral hardness in these sources. Both $r_{rm max}$ and $Q_{rm max}$ in the sample of sources, and the rms amplitude and coherence of the kHz QPOs in individual sources show a similar behaviour with hardness. This similarity argues against the interpretation that the drop of coherence and rms amplitude of the lower kHz QPO at high QPO frequencies in individual sources is a signature of the innermost stable circular orbit around a neutron star.
We report the discovery of a new changing-look quasar, SDSS J101152.98+544206.4, through repeat spectroscopy from the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey. This is an addition to a small but growing set of quasars whose blue continua and broad optical emission lines have been observed to decline by a large factor on a time scale of approximately a decade. The 5100 Angstrom monochromatic continuum luminosity of this quasar drops by a factor of > 9.8 in a rest-frame time interval of < 9.7 years, while the broad H-alpha luminosity drops by a factor of 55 in the same amount of time. The width of the broad H-alpha line increases in the dim state such that the black hole mass derived from the appropriate single-epoch scaling relation agrees between the two epochs within a factor of 3. The fluxes of the narrow emission lines do not appear to change between epochs. The light curve obtained by the Catalina Sky Survey suggests that the transition occurs within a rest-frame time interval of approximately 500 days. We examine three possible mechanisms for this transition suggested in the recent literature. An abrupt change in the reddening towards the central engine is disfavored by the substantial difference between the timescale to obscure the central engine and the observed timescale of the transition. A decaying tidal disruption flare is consistent with the decay rate of the light curve but not with the prolonged bright state preceding the decay, nor can this scenario provide the power required by the luminosities of the emission lines. An abrupt drop in the accretion rate onto the supermassive black hole appears to be the most plausible explanation for the rapid dimming.
Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have achieved remarkable performance on a range of tasks. A key step to further empowering DNN-based approaches is improving their explainability. In this work we present CME: a concept-based model extraction framework, used for analysing DNN models via concept-based extracted models. Using two case studies (dSprites, and Caltech UCSD Birds), we demonstrate how CME can be used to (i) analyse the concept information learned by a DNN model (ii) analyse how a DNN uses this concept information when predicting output labels (iii) identify key concept information that can further improve DNN predictive performance (for one of the case studies, we showed how model accuracy can be improved by over 14%, using only 30% of the available concepts).
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 $-(2.10pm 0.05)times$10$^{-4}$ s/d from 2009 -- 2018, and turned into a spin down process with a rate of $(6.7pm 0.6)times$10$^{-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 Alfv{e}n 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 $Bgeq 6times 10^{12}$ G for the neutron star in GRO J1008-57, which is consistent with the magnetic field strength obtained by cyclotron line centroid energy.
The axion has emerged in recent years as a leading particle candidate to provide the mysterious dark matter in the cosmos, as we review here for a general scientific audience. We describe first the historical roots of the axion in the Standard Model of particle physics and the problem of charge-parity invariance of the strong nuclear force. We then discuss how the axion emerges as a dark matter candidate, and how it is produced in the early Universe. The symmetry properties of the axion dictate the form of its interactions with ordinary matter. Astrophysical considerations restrict the particle mass and interaction strengths to a limited range, which facilitates the planning of experiments to detect the axion. A companion review discusses the exciting prospect that the axion could indeed be detected in the near term in the laboratory.