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We report the discovery of a UHE gamma-ray source, LHAASO J2108+5157, by analyzing the LHAASO-KM2A data of 308.33 live days. Significant excess of gamma-ray induced showers is observed in both energy bands of 25-100 TeV and $\gt$100 TeV with 9.5 sigma and 8.5 sigma, respectively. This source is not significantly favored as an extensive source with the angular extension smaller than the point-spread function of KM2A. The measured energy spectrum from 20 to 200 TeV can be approximately described by a power-law function with an index of -2.83$\pm$ 0.18stat. A harder spectrum is demanded at lower energies considering the flux upper limit set by Fermi-LAT observations. The position of the gamma-ray emission is correlated with a giant molecular cloud, which favors a hadronic origin. No obvious counterparts have been found, deeper multiwavelength observations will help to shed new light on this intriguing UHE source., Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJL

Neutron stars (NSs) in scalar-tensor theories of gravitation with the phenomenon of spontaneous scalarization can develop significant deviations from general relativity. Cases with a massless scalar were studied widely. Here we compare the NS scalarizations in the Damour--Esposito-Far{\`e}se theory, the Mendes-Ortiz theory, and the $\xi$-theory with a massive scalar field. Numerical solutions for slowly rotating NSs are obtained. They are used to construct the X-ray pulse profiles of a pair of extended hot spots on the surface of NSs. We also calculate the tidal deformability for NSs with spontaneous scalarization which is done for the first time with a massive scalar field. We show the universal relation between the moment of inertia and the tidal deformability. The X-ray pulse profiles, the tidal deformability, and the universal relation may help to constrain the massive scalar-tensor theories in X-ray and gravitational-wave observations of NSs, including the Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) satellite, Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, and LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA laser interferometers., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables; accepted by PRD

The shape of a neutron star (NS) is closely linked to its internal structure and the equation of state of supranuclear matters. A rapidly rotating, asymmetric NS in the Milky Way undergoes free precession, making it a potential source for multimessenger observation. The free precession could manifest in (i) the spectra of continuous gravitational waves (GWs) in the kilohertz band for ground-based GW detectors, and (ii) the timing behavior and pulse-profile characteristics if the NS is monitored as a pulsar with radio and/or X-ray telescopes. We extend previous work and investigate in great detail the free precession of a triaxially deformed NS with analytical and numerical approaches. In particular, its associated continuous GWs and pulse signals are derived. Explicit examples are illustrated for the continuous GWs, as well as timing residuals in both time and frequency domains. These results are ready to be used for future multimessenger observation of triaxially-deformed freely-precessing NSs, in order to extract scientific implication as much as possible., 14 pages, 9 figures; accepted by MNRAS

A sub-array of the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), KM2A is mainly designed to observe a large fraction of the northern sky to hunt for γ-ray sources at energies above 10 TeV. Even though the detector construction is still underway, half of the KM2A array has been operating stably since the end of 2019. In this paper, we present the KM2A data analysis pipeline and the first observation of the Crab Nebula, a standard candle in very high energy γ-ray astronomy. We detect γ-ray signals from the Crab Nebula in both energy ranges of 10 100 TeV and 100 TeV with high significance, by analyzing the KM2A data of 136 live days between December 2019 and May 2020. With the observations, we test the detector performance, including angular resolution, pointing accuracy and cosmic-ray background rejection power. The energy spectrum of the Crab Nebula in the energy range 10-250 TeV fits well with a single power-law function dN/dE = (1.13 0.05 0.08 ) 10 (E/20 TeV) cm s TeV . It is consistent with previous measurements by other experiments. This opens a new window of γ-ray astronomy above 0.1 PeV through which new ultrahigh-energy γ-ray phenomena, such as cosmic PeVatrons, might be discovered.

Pulsars have been found more than 40 years. Observations from radio to gamma-rays present abundant information. However, the radiation mechanism is still an open question. It is found that the annular gap could be formed in the magnetosphere of pulsars (neutron stars or quark stars), which combines the advantages of the polar cap, slot gap and outer gap models. It is emphasized that observations of some radio pulsars, normal and millisecond gamma-ray pulsars (MSGPs) show that the annular gap would play a very important role. Here we show some observational and theoretical evidences about the annular gap. For example, bi-drifting sub-pulses; radio and gamma-ray millisecond pulsars and so on.

Pulsed high energy radiation from pulsars is not yet completely understood. In this paper, we use the 3D self-consistent annular gap model to study light curves for both young and millisecond pulsars observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The annular gap can generate high energy emission for short-period pulsars. The annular gap regions are so large that they have enough electric potential drop to accelerate charged particles to produce gamma-ray photons. For young pulsars, the emission region is from the neutron star surface to about half of the light cylinder radius, and the peak emissivity is in the vicinity of the null charge surface. The emission region for the millisecond pulsars is located much lower than that of the young pulsars. The higher energy gamma-ray emission comes from higher altitudes in the magnetosphere. We present the simulated light curves for three young pulsars (the Crab, the Vela, the Geminga) and three millisecond pulsars (PSR J0030+0451, PSR J0218+4232, PSR J0437-3715) using the annular gap model. Our simulations can reproduce the main properties of observed light curves.

Although pulsars can radiate electromagnetic wave from radio to gamma ray bands, we still have no a united model to understand the multi-band emission. In this paper the effort for a joint model is presented. The inverse Compton scattering (ICS) and a second acceleration process near the null surface are involved to account for the radio and the gama-ray emission, respectively. Various kind of pulse profiles and other observational properties can be reproduced.

Many theoretical efforts were made to understand the core and conal emission identified from observations by Rankin (1983) and Lyne and Manchester (1988). One of them, named as inverse Compton scattering (ICS) model (Qiao & Lin 1998), has been proposed. It is found in the model that: there are central or ‘core’ emission beam, and one or two hollow conical emission beams; the different emission components are emitted at different heights; owing to different radiation components emitted from different height, the observed emission beams can be shifted from each other due to retardation and aberration effects; the sizes of emission components change with frequencies. Recent developments of the model include: simulations of pulse profiles at different frequencies; studying the basic polarization properties of inverse Compton scattering in strong magnetic fields; computing the polarizations and spectrum of core and cones. A new classification system was also proposed. The main results calculated from the model are consistent with the observations.

Aims. We use the supernova-GRB (γ-ray burst) association and assume that the GRB asymmetric explosions produce pulsars in order to test the consistency of distributions of modeled and observed pulsar-kick velocities. Methods. The deduced distribution of kick velocity from the model of GRB and the observed kick distribution of radio pulsars are checked by a K-S test. Results. These two distributions are found to come from the same parent population. Conclusions. This result may indicate that GRBs could really be related to supernova and that the asymmetry of GRB associated with supernova would cause the pulsar kick.

Timing observations from the Parkes 64-m radio telescope for 165 pulsars between 1990 and 2011 have been searched for period glitches. A total of 107 glitches were identified in 36 pulsars, where 61 have previously been reported and 46 are new discoveries. Glitch parameters were measured by fitting the timing residual data. Observed relative glitch sizes \Delta\nu_g/\nu range between 10^-10 and 10^-5, where \nu = 1/P is the pulse frequency. We confirm that the distribution of \Delta\nu_g/\nu is bimodal with peaks at approximately 10^-9 and 10^-6. Glitches are mostly observed in pulsars with characteristic ages between 10^3 and 10^5 years, with large glitches mostly occurring in the younger pulsars. Exponential post-glitch recoveries were observed for 27 large glitches in 18 pulsars. The fraction Q of the glitch that recovers exponentially also has a bimodal distribution. Large glitches generally have low Q, typically a few per cent, but large Q values are observed in both large and small glitches. Observed time constants for exponential recoveries ranged between 10 and 300 days with some tendency for longer timescales in older pulsars. Shorter timescale recoveries may exist but were not revealed by our data which typically have observation intervals of 2 - 4 weeks. For most of the 36 pulsars with observed glitches, there is a persistent linear increase in \dot\nu in the inter-glitch interval. Where an exponential recovery is also observed, the effects of this are superimposed on the linear increase in \dot\nu. In some cases, the slope of the linear recovery changes at the time of a glitch. The \ddot\nu values characterising the linear changes in \dot\nu are almost always positive and, after subtracting the magnetospheric component of the braking, are approximately proportional to the ratio of |\dot\nu| and the inter-glitch interval, as predicted by vortex-creep models., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS

The key point of studying AXPs/SGRs (anomalous X-ray pulsars/soft gamma-ray repeaters) is relevant to the energy budget. Historically, rotation was thought to be the only free energy of pulsar until the discovery of accretion power in X-ray binaries. AXPs/SGRs could be magnetars if they are magnetism-powered, but would alternatively be quark-star/fallback-disk systems if more and more observations would hardly be understood in the magnetar scenario., Comment: Proceedings of IAUS 291 "Neutron Stars and Pulsars: Challenges and Opportunities after 80 years", J. van Leeuwen (ed.); 3 pages, 1 figure

Pulsar radio and γ-ray emission has been studied for about forty years, yet no elaborated model is present to account for all the emission of pulsars from radio to γ-ray bands. A reasonable emission model should present the mechanism for wide band radiation. The magnetosphere structure and particle acceleration regions are the basis for solving problem, observations are important inputs to establish a reasonable model. In our work, both radio and gamma-ray observations have been considered. We will show how they can limit the radiation locations and radiation mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages for different radiation locations (such as the polar gap, the outer gap and the annular gap) are discussed in comparison with observational facts. The annular gap model, an joint model for both radio and γ-ray emissions, was proposed recently and reproduce successfully some important observational phenomenon, e.g., bi-drifting. We will also discuss for radio and γ-ray observations of PSR B1055-52, and show that radiations come from the annular region and the core region. Success in reproducing many observational facts suggest that the annular gap is a promising model for pulsar multi-wavelength radiation.

We propose to determine the mass and the radius of a neutron star (NS) using three measurable mass-radius relationships, namely the ``apparent'' radius inferred from neutron star thermal emission, the gravitational redshift inferred from the absorption lines, as well as the averaged stellar mass density inferred from the orbital Keplerian frequency derived from the kilohertz quasi periodic oscillation (kHz QPO) data. We apply the method to constrain the NS mass and the radius of the X-ray sources, 1E 1207.4-5209, Aql X-1 and EXO 0748-676., 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted by MNRAS

Currently most of known stellar mass black holes have masses around seven solar masses, far exceeding the mass upper limit for a neutron star, which is around three solar masses. The LC equivalent potential is too small compare to strong interaction potential, so that gravity is usually ignored inside a strange star. We use the MIT bag model of quark matter, and assume the density in the bare strange star is a constant. We consider the scenario in which the mass of the strange star grows until its last stable orbit exceeds its radius. At this point the gravity inside the strange star becomes important and the strange star will quickly collapse into a black hole when it spins down.

Qiao and his collaborators recently proposed an inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) model to explain radio emission of pulsars. In this paper, we investigate the polarization properties of pulsar emission in the model. First of all, using the lower frequency approximation, we derived the analytical amplitude of inverse Compton scattered wave of a single electron in strong magnetic field. We found that the out-going radio emission of a single relativistic electron scattering off the ``low frequency waves'' produced by gap-sparking should be linearly polarized and have no circular polarization at all. However, considering the coherency of the emission from a bunch of electrons, we found that the out-going radiation from the inner part of emission beam, i.e., that from the lower emission altitudes, prefers to have circular polarization. Computer simulations show that the polarization properties, such as the sense reversal of circular polarization near the pulse center, S-shape of position angle swing of the linear polarization, strong linear polarization in conal components, can be reproduced in the ICS model., Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX. ApJ (pt.1), accepted

We propose that the violent breakdown of the Ruderman-Sutherland type vacuum gap above the pulsar polar cap region may produce copious primary particles and make the charge density above the gap in excess of the Goldreich-Julian density. Such an excess residue of charge density may arise some re-acceleration regions above the gap due to the space-charge-limited flow mechanism. Such re-acceleration regions, if exist, may accelerate particles to carry away more spin-down energy, and may have some implications for pulsar $\gamma$-ray emission., Comment: 2 pages, no figures, LaTeX

Many models for the pulsar radio and $\gamma$-ray emissions have been developed. The tests for these models using observational data are very important. Tests for the pulsar radio emission models using frequency-altitude relation are presented in this paper. In the radio band, the mean pulse profiles evolve with observing frequencies. There are various styles of pulsar profile - frequency evolutions (which we call as "beam evolution" figure), e.g. some pulsars show that mean pulse profiles are wider and core emission is higher at higher frequencies than that at lower frequencies, but some other pulsars show completely the contrary results. We show that all these "beam evolution" figures can be understood by the Inverse Compton Scattering(ICS) model (see Qiao at al.2001 also). An important observing test is that, for a certain observing frequency different emission components are radiated from the different heights. For the $\gamma$-ray pulsars, the geometrical method (Wang et al. 2006) can be used to diagnose the radiation location for the $\gamma$-ray radiation. As an example, Wang et al. (2006) constrain the $\gamma$-ray radiation location of PSR B1055-52 to be the place near the null charge surface. Here we show that Wang's result matches the proposed radiation locations by the annular gap model as well as the outer gap models., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, Proceedings of "Astrophysics of Compact Objects", 1th-7th, July, 2007