Search

As the brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed, GRB 221009A provided a precious opportunity to explore spectral line features. In this paper, we performed a comprehensive spectroscopy analysis of GRB 221009A jointly with GECAM-C and Fermi/GBM data to search for emission and absorption lines. For the first time we investigated the line feature throughout this GRB including the most bright part where many instruments suffered problems, and identified prominent emission lines in multiple time intervals. The central energy of the Gaussian emission line evolves from about 37 MeV to 6 MeV, with a nearly constant ratio (about 10\%) between the line width and central energy. Particularly, we find that both the central energy and the energy flux of the emission line evolve with time as a power law decay with power law index of -1 and -2 respectively. We suggest that the observed emission lines most likely originate from the blue-shifted electron positron pair annihilation 511 keV line. We find that a standard high latitude emission scenario cannot fully interpret the observation, thus we propose that the emission line comes from some dense clumps with electron positron pairs traveling together with the jet. In this scenario, we can use the emission line to directly, for the first time, measure the bulk Lorentz factor of the jet ($\Gamma$) and reveal its time evolution (i.e. $\Gamma \sim t^{-1}$) during the prompt emission. Interestingly, we find that the flux of the annihilation line in the co-moving frame keeps constant. These discoveries of the spectral line features shed new and important lights on the physics of GRB and relativistic jet., Comment: Accepted by SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (SCPMA)

The prompt emission mechanism of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is still unclear, and the time-resolved spectral analysis of GRBs is a powerful tool for studying their underlying physical processes. We performed a detailed time-resolved spectral analysis of 78 bright long GRB samples detected by Fermi/Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). A total of 1490 spectra were obtained and their properties were studied using a typical Band-shape model. Firstly, the parameter distribution of the time-resolved spectrum given as follows: the low-energy spectral index $\alpha \sim -0.72$, high-energy spectral index $\beta \sim -2.42$, the peak energy $E_{\rm p} \sim 221.69 \,\rm{keV}$, and the energy flux $F \sim 7.49\times 10^{-6} \rm{\, erg\,cm^{-2}\,s^{-1}}$. More than 80\% of the bursts exhibit the hardest low-energy spectral index $\alpha_{\rm max}$ exceeding the synchrotron limit (-2/3). Secondly, the evolution patterns of $\alpha$ and $E_{\rm p}$ were statistically analyzed. The results show that for multi-pulse GRBs the intensity-tracking pattern is more common than the hard-to-soft pattern in the evolution of both $E_{\rm p}$ and $\alpha$. The hard-to-soft pattern is generally shown in single-pulse GRBs or in the initial pulse of multi-pulse GRBs. Finally, we found a significant positive correlation between $F$ and $E_{\rm p}$, with half of the samples exhibiting a positive correlation between $F$ and $\alpha$. We discussed the spectral evolution of different radiation models. The diversity of spectral evolution patterns indicates that there may be more than one radiation mechanism occurring in the gamma-ray burst radiation process, including photospheric radiation and synchrotron radiation. However, it may also involve only one radiation mechanism, but more complicated physical details need to be considered., Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, accepted and published in RAA

In this paper, we presented a detailed single pulse and polarization study of PSR J0614+2229 based on the archived data observed on 2019 August 15 (MJD 58710) and September 12 (MJD 58738) using the Ultra-wideband Low-frequency Receiver on the Parkes radio telescope. The single-pulse sequences show that this pulsar switches between two emission states, in which the emission of state A occurs earlier than that of state B in pulse longitude. We found that the variation in relative brightness between the two states is related to time and both states follow a simple power law very well. Based on the phase-aligned multi-frequency profiles, we found that there is a significant difference in the distributions of spectral index across the emission regions of the two states. Furthermore, we obtained the emission height evolution for the two emission states and found that, at a fixed frequency, the emission height of state A is higher than that of state B. What is even more interesting is that the emission heights of both states A and B have not changed with frequency. Our results suggest that the mode switching of this pulsar is possibly caused by changes in the emission heights that alter the distributions of spectral index across the emission regions of states A and B resulting in the frequency-dependent behaviors, i.e., intensity and pulse width.

The minimum variation timescale (MVT) and spectral lag of hundreds of X-ray bursts (XRBs) from soft gamma-ray repeater (SGR) J1935+2154 were analyzed in detail for the first time in our recent work, which are important probes for studying the physical mechanism and radiation region. In this work, we investigate their differential and cumulative distributions carefully and find that they follow power-law models. Besides, the distributions of fluctuations in both parameters follow the Tsallis $q$-Gaussian distributions and the $q$ values are consistent for different scale intervals. Therefore, these results indicate that both parameters are scale-invariant, which provides new parameters for the study of self-organized criticality systems. Interestingly, we find that the $q$ values for MVT and spectral lag are similar with duration and fluence, respectively., Comment: accepted by MNRAS

Understanding the nature of repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) is crucial to probe their underlying physics. In this work, we analyze the waiting time statistics between bursts of three repeating FRBs from four datasets. We find a universally pronounced dependency of the waiting times on the previous time interval (denoted as $\lambda_0$). We observe a temporal clustering where short waiting times tend to be followed by short ones, and long by long comparative to their mean value. This memory dependency is manifested in the conditional mean waiting time as well as in the conditional mean residual time to the next burst, both of which increase in direct proportion to $\lambda_0$. Consequently, the likelihood of experiencing a subsequent FRB burst within a given time window after the preceding burst is generally influenced by the burst history. We reveal that for the first time, these memory effects are present in the scale-invariant preconditioned waiting time distribution. We show that the memory effect provides a unified description of waiting times which may account for both the repeating FRBs and the apparent non-repeating FRBs (i.e. only observed one time). These results shed new light on the mechanism of FRBs.

Pulsar search is always the basis of pulsar navigation, gravitational wave detection and other research topics. Currently, the volume of pulsar candidates collected by Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) shows an explosive growth rate that has brought challenges for its pulsar candidate filtering System. Particularly, the multi-view heterogeneous data and class imbalance between true pulsars and non-pulsar candidates have negative effects on traditional single-modal supervised classification methods. In this study, a multi-modal and semi-supervised learning based pulsar candidate sifting algorithm is presented, which adopts a hybrid ensemble clustering scheme of density-based and partition-based methods combined with a feature-level fusion strategy for input data and a data partition strategy for parallelization. Experiments on both HTRU (The High Time Resolution Universe Survey) 2 and FAST actual observation data demonstrate that the proposed algorithm could excellently identify the pulsars: On HTRU2, the precision and recall rates of its parallel mode reach 0.981 and 0.988. On FAST data, those of its parallel mode reach 0.891 and 0.961, meanwhile, the running time also significantly decrease with the increment of parallel nodes within limits. So, we can get the conclusion that our algorithm could be a feasible idea for large scale pulsar candidate sifting of FAST drift scan observation.

The multi-drifting subpulse behaviors in PSR J2007+0910 have been studied carefully with the high sensitivity observations of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) at 1250 MHz. We found that there are at least six different single emission modes in PSR J2007+0910 are observed, four of which show significant subpulse drifting behaviors (modes A, B, C, and D), and the remaining two (modes $E_1$ and $E_2$) show stationary subpulse structures. The subpulse drifting periods of modes A, B, C, and D are $P_{3, A} = 8.7 \pm 1.6 P$, $P_{3, B} = 15.8 \pm 1.2 P$, $P_{3, C} = 21.6 \pm 1.3 P$ and $P_{3, D} = 32.3 \pm 0.9 P$, respectively, where $P$ represents the pulse period of this pulsar. The subpulse separation is almost the same for all modes $P_2 = 6.01 \pm 0.18 ^\circ$. Deep analysis suggests that the appearance and significant changes in the drifting period of multi-drifting subpulse emission modes for a pulsar may originate from the aliasing effect. The observed non-drifting modes may be caused by the spark point move with a period ~P_2. Our statistical analysis shows that the drift mode of this pulsar almost always switches from slower to faster drifts in the mode change. The interesting subpulse emission phenomenon of PSR J2007+0910 provides a unique opportunity to understand the switching mechanism of multi-drift mode., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, Accepted to MNRAS

The early afterglow of a Gamma-ray burst (GRB) can provide critical information on the jet and progenitor of the GRB. The extreme brightness of GRB 221009A allows us to probe its early afterglow in unprecedented detail. In this letter, we report comprehensive observation results of the early afterglow of GRB 221009A (from $T_0$+660 s to $T_0$+1860 s, where $T_0$ is the \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE trigger time) in X/$\gamma$-ray energy band (from 20 keV to 20 MeV) by \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE, GECAM-C and \textit{Fermi}/GBM. We find that the spectrum of the early afterglow in 20 keV-20 MeV could be well described by a cutoff power-law with an extra power-law which dominates the low and high energy bands respectively. The cutoff power-law $E_{\rm peak}$ is $\sim$ 30 keV and the power-law photon index is $\sim$ 1.8 throughout the early afterglow phase. By fitting the light curves in different energy bands, we find that a significant achromatic break (from keV to TeV) is required at $T_0$ + 1246$^{+27}_{-26}$ s (i.e. 1021 s since the afterglow starting time $T_{\rm AG}$=$T_0$+225 s), providing compelling evidence of a jet break. Interestingly, both the pre-break and post-break decay slopes vary with energy, and these two slopes become closer in the lower energy band, making the break less identifiable. Intriguingly, the spectrum of the early afterglow experienced a slight hardening before the break and a softening after the break. These results provide new insights into the understanding of this remarkable GRB., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters on 19-Jan-2024, 11 pages, 7 figures and 2 tables

As a new member of the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) after GECAM-A and GECAM-B, GECAM-C (originally called HEBS), which was launched on board the SATech-01 satellite on July 27, 2022, aims to monitor and localize X-ray and gamma-ray transients from $\sim$ 6 keV to 6 MeV. GECAM-C utilizes a similar design to GECAM but operates in a more complex orbital environment. In this work, we utilize the secondary particles simultaneously produced by the cosmic-ray events on orbit and recorded by multiple detectors, to calibrate the relative timing accuracy between all detectors of GECAM-C. We find the result is 0.1 $\mu \rm s$, which is the highest time resolution among all GRB detectors ever flown and very helpful in timing analyses such as minimum variable timescale and spectral lags, as well as in time delay localization. Besides, we calibrate the absolute time accuracy using the one-year Crab pulsar data observed by GECAM-C and Fermi/GBM, as well as GECAM-C and GECAM-B. The results are $2.02\pm 2.26\ \mu \rm s$ and $5.82\pm 3.59\ \mu \rm s$, respectively. Finally, we investigate the spectral lag between the different energy bands of Crab pulsar observed by GECAM and GBM, which is $\sim -0.2\ {\rm \mu s\ keV^{-1}}$., Comment: submitted

The study of quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) and power density spectra (PDS) continuum properties can help shed light on the still illusive emission physics of magnetars and as a window into the interiors of neutron stars using asteroseismology. In this work, we employ a Bayesian method to search for the QPOs in the hundreds of X-ray bursts from SGR J1935+2154 observed by {\it Insight}-HXMT, GECAM and Fermi/GBM from July 2014 to January 2022. Although no definitive QPO signal (significance $>3\sigma$) is detected in individual bursts or the averaged periodogram of the bursts grouped by duration, we identify several bursts exhibiting possible QPO at $\sim$ 40 Hz, which is consistent with that reported in the X-ray burst associated with FRB 200428. We investigate the PDS continuum properties and find that the distribution of the PDS slope in the simple power-law model peaks $\sim$ 2.5, which is consistent with other magnetars but higher than 5/3 commonly seen in gamma-ray bursts. Besides, the distribution of the break frequency in the broken power-law model peaks at $\sim$ 60 Hz. Finally, we report that the power-law index of PDS has an anti-correlation and power-law dependence on the burst duration as well as the minimum variation timescale., Comment: comments welcome

The minimum variation timescale (MVT) of soft gamma-ray repeaters can be an important probe to estimate the emission region in pulsar-like models, as well as the Lorentz factor and radius of the possible relativistic jet in gamma-ray burst (GRB)-like models, thus revealing their progenitors and physical mechanisms. In this work, we systematically study the MVTs of hundreds of X-ray bursts (XRBs) from SGR J1935+2154 observed by {\it Insight}-HXMT, GECAM and Fermi/GBM from July 2014 to Jan 2022 through the Bayesian Block algorithm. We find that the MVTs peak at $\sim$ 2 ms, corresponding to a light travel time size of about 600 km, which supports the magnetospheric origin in pulsar-like models. The shock radius and the Lorentz factor of the jet are also constrained in GRB-like models. Interestingly, the MVT of the XRB associated with FRB 200428 is $\sim$ 70 ms, which is longer than that of most bursts and implies its special radiation mechanism. Besides, the median of MVTs is 7 ms, shorter than the median MVTs of 40 ms and 480 ms for short GRBs or long GRBs, respectively. However, the MVT is independent of duration, similar to GRBs. Finally, we investigate the energy dependence of MVT and suggest that there is a marginal evidence for a power-law relationship like GRBs but the rate of variation is at least about an order of magnitude smaller. These features may provide an approach to identify bursts with a magnetar origin., Comment: accepted for publication in ApJS

Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM), consisting of two micro-satellites, is designed to detect gamma-ray bursts associated with gravitational-wave events. Here, we introduce the real-time burst alert system of GECAM, with the adoption of the BeiDou-3 short message communication service. We present the post-trigger operations, the detailed ground-based analysis, and the performance of the system. In the first year of the in-flight operation, GECAM was triggered by 42 GRBs. GECAM real-time burst alert system has the ability to distribute the alert within $\sim$1 minute after being triggered, which enables timely follow-up observations., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; Accepted for publication in RAA

Magnetar is a neutron star with an ultrahigh magnetic field ($\sim 10^{14}-10^{15}$ G) which usually manifests as soft gamma-ray repeater (SGR) or anomalous X-ray pulsar (AXP). SGR J1935+2154 is not only one of the most active magnetar detected so far, but also the unique confirmed source of fast radio burst (FRB). Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) are dedicated to monitor gamma-ray transients all over the sky, including SGR bursts. Here we report the GECAM observation of the burst activity of SGR J1935+2154 from January 2021 to December 2022, which results in a unique and valuable data set for this important magnetar. With a targeted search of GECAM data, 164 bursts from SGR J1935+2154 are detected by GECAM-B while 97 bursts by GECAM-C, including the X-ray burst associated with a fast radio burst (FRB 20221014). We find that both the burst duration and the waiting time between two successive bursts follow lognormal distributions. The period of burst activity is $134\pm20$ days, thus the burst activity could be generally divided into 4 active episodes over these two years. Interestingly, the hardness ratio of X-ray bursts tends to be softer and more concentrated over these two years, especially during the active episode with FRBs detected.

In this paper, we presented the 23.3 years of pulsar timing results of PSR J1456-6413 based on the observation of Parkes 64m radio telescope. We detected two new glitches at MJD 57093(3) and 59060(12) and confirmed its first glitch at MJD 54554(10). Using the "Cholesky" timing analysis method, we have determined its position, proper motion, and two-dimensional transverse velocities from the data segments before and after the second glitch, respectively. Furthermore, we detected exponential recovery behavior after the first glitch, with a recovery time scale of approximately 200 days and a corresponding exponential recovery factor Q of approximately 0.15(2), while no exponential recovery was detected for the other two glitches. More interestingly, we found that the leading component of the integral pulse profile after the second glitch became stronger, while the main component became weaker. Our results will expand the sample of pulsars with magnetosphere fluctuation triggered by the glitch event.

The determination of the absolute and relative position of a spacecraft is critical for its operation, observations, data analysis, scientific studies, as well as deep space exploration in general. A spacecraft that can determine its own absolute position autonomously may perform more than that must rely on transmission solutions. In this work, we report an absolute navigation accuracy of $\sim$ 20 km using 16-day Crab pulsar data observed with $Fermi$ Gamma ray Burst Monitor (GBM). In addition, we propose a new method with the inverse process of the triangulation for joint navigation using repeated bursts like that from the magnetar SGR J1935+2154 observed by the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) and GBM., Comment: accepted for publication in ApJS

Spectral lag of the low-energy photons with respect to the high-energy ones is a common astrophysical phenomenon (such as Gamma-ray bursts and the Crab pulsar) and may serve as a key probe to the underlying radiation mechanism. However, spectral lag in keV range of the magnetar bursts has not been systematically studied yet. In this work, we perform a detailed spectral lag analysis with the Li-CCF method for SGR J1935+2154 bursts observed by {\it Insight}-HXMT, GECAM and Fermi/GBM from July 2014 to Jan 2022. We discover that the spectral lags of about 61\% (non-zero significance >1$\sigma$) bursts from SGR J1935+2154 are linearly dependent on the photon energy ($E$) with $t_{\rm lag}(E)=\alpha (E/{\rm keV})+C$, which may be explained by a linear change of the temperature of the blackbody-emitting plasma with time. The distribution of the slope ($\alpha$) approximately follows a Gaussian function with mean and standard deviation of 0.02 ms/keV (i.e. high-energy photons arrive earlier) and 0.02 ms/keV, respectively. We also find that the distribution can be well fitted with three Gaussians with mean values of $\sim$ -0.009, 0.013 and 0.039 ms/keV, which may correspond to different origins of the bursts. These spectral lag features may have important implications on the magnetar bursts., Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS

The gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A, known as the ``brightest-of-all-time" (BOAT), is the closest energetic burst detected so far, with an energy of $E_{\gamma,\rm iso} \sim 10^{55}$ ergs. This study aims to assess its compatibility with known GRB energy and luminosity distributions. Our analysis indicates that the energy/luminosity function of GRBs is consistent across various redshift intervals, and that the inclusion of GRB 221009A does not significantly impact the function at low redshifts. Additionally, our evaluation of the best-fitting result of the entire GRB sample suggests that the expected number of GRBs with energy greater than $10^{55}$ ergs at a low redshift is 0.2, so that the emergence of GRB 221009A is consistent with expected energy/luminosity functions within $\sim 2\sigma$ Poisson fluctuation error, still adhering to the principles of small number statistics. Furthermore, we find that GRB 221009A and other energetic bursts, defined as $E_{\gamma,\rm iso} \gtrsim10^{54} {\rm ergs}$, exhibit no significant differences in terms of distributions of $T_{90}$, minimum timescale, Amati relation, $E_{\rm \gamma,iso}$-$E_{\rm X,iso}$ relation, $L_{\gamma,\rm iso}-\Gamma_0$ relation, $E_{\gamma,\rm iso}-\Gamma_0$ relation, $L_{\gamma,\rm iso}-E_{\rm p,i}-\Gamma_0$ relation, and host galaxy properties, compared to normal long GRBs. This suggests that energetic GRBs (including GRB 221009A) and other long GRBs likely have similar progenitor systems and undergo similar energy dissipation and radiation processes. The generation of energetic GRBs may be due to more extreme central engine properties or, more likely, a rarer viewing configuration of a quasi-universal structured jet., Comment: Submitted to AAS journal

High-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) provide a powerful tool to probe the early universe, but still for relatively few do we have good observations of the afterglow. We here report the optical and near-infrared observations of the afterglow of a relatively high-redshift event, GRB\,220101A, triggered on New Year's Day of 2022. With the optical spectra obtained at XL2.16/BFOSC and NOT/ALFOSC, we determine the redshift of the burst at $z= 4.615$. Based on our optical and near-infrared data, combined with the X-ray data, we perform multiband fit with the python package \emph{afterglowpy}. A jet-break at $\sim$ 0.7 day post-burst is found to constrain the opening angle of the jet as $\sim$ 3.4 degree. We also determine circumburst density of $n_0 = 0.15\ {\rm cm}^{-3}$ as well as kinetic energy $E_{\rm K, iso} = 3.52\times 10^{54}$ erg. The optical afterglow is among the most luminous ever detected. We also find a ``mirror'' feature in the lightcurve during the prompt phase of the burst from 80 s to 120 s. The physical origin of such mirror feature is unclear., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, submitted to ApJ

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 \textit{Insight}-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., Comment: Submitted to National Science Review. This paper is under press embargo, contact the corresponding author for details

The brightest Gamma-ray burst, GRB 221009A, has spurred numerous theoretical investigations, with particular attention paid to the origins of ultra-high energy TeV photons during the prompt phase. However, analyzing the mechanism of radiation of photons in the $\sim$MeV range has been difficult because the high flux causes pile-up and saturation effects in most GRB detectors. In this letter, we present systematic modeling of the time-resolved spectra of the GRB using unsaturated data obtained from Fermi/GBM (precursor) and SATech-01/GECAM-C (main emission and flare). Our approach incorporates the synchrotron radiation model, which assumes an expanding emission region with relativistic speed and a global magnetic field that decays with radius, and successfully fits such a model to the observational data. Our results indicate that the spectra of the burst are fully in accordance with a synchrotron origin from relativistic electrons accelerated at a large emission radius. The lack of thermal emission in the prompt emission spectra supports a Poynting-flux-dominated jet composition., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJL

The gamma-ray detectors (GRDs) of GECAM-C onborad SATech-01 satellite is designed to monitor gamma-ray transients all over the sky from 6 keV to 6 MeV. The energy response matrix is the key to do spectral measurements of bursts, which is usually generated from GEANT4 simulation and partially verified by the ground calibration. In this work, energy response matrix of GECAM-C GRD is cross-calibrated with Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT using a sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters (SGRs). The calibration results show there is a good agreement between GECAM-C and other reasonably well calibrated instrument (i.e. Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT). We also find that different GRD detectors of GECAM-C also show consistency with each other. All these results indicate that GECAM-C GRD can provide reliable spectral measurements., Comment: preliminary version, will be updated soon

As a new member of GECAM mission, GECAM-C (also named High Energy Burst Searcher, HEBS) was launched onboard the SATech-01 satellite on July 27th, 2022, which is capable to monitor gamma-ray transients from $\sim$ 6 keV to 6 MeV. As the main detector, there are 12 gamma-ray detectors (GRDs) equipped for GECAM-C. In order to verify the GECAM-C GRD detector performance and to validate the Monte Carlo simulations of detector response, comprehensive on-ground calibration experiments have been performed using X-ray beam and radioactive sources, including Energy-Channel relation, energy resolution, detection efficiency, SiPM voltage-gain relation and the non-uniformity of positional response. In this paper, the detailed calibration campaigns and data analysis results for GECAM-C GRDs are presented, demonstrating the excellent performance of GECAM-C GRD detectors., Comment: third version

As a new member of GECAM mission, the GECAM-C (also called High Energy Burst Searcher, HEBS) is a gamma-ray all-sky monitor onboard SATech-01 satellite, which was launched on July 27th, 2022 to detect gamma-ray transients from 6 keV to 6 MeV, such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), high energy counterpart of Gravitational Waves (GWs) and Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), and Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs). Together with GECAM-A and GECAM-B launched in December 2020, GECAM-C will greatly improve the monitoring coverage, localization, as well as temporal and spectral measurements of gamma-ray transients. GECAM-C employs 12 SiPM-based Gamma-Ray Detectors (GRDs) to detect gamma-ray transients . In this paper, we firstly give a brief description of the design of GECAM-C GRDs, and then focus on the on-ground tests and in-flight performance of GRDs. We also did the comparison study of the SiPM in-flight performance between GECAM-C and GECAM-B. The results show GECAM-C GRD works as expected and is ready to make scientific observations., Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures

Searching for X-ray and gamma-ray bursts, including Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters (SGRs) and high energy transients associated with Gravitational wave (GW) events or Fast radio bursts (FRBs), is of great importance in the multi-messenger and multi-wavelength era. Although a coherent search based on the likelihood ratio and Gaussian statistics has been established and utilized in many studies, this Gaussian-based method could be problematic for weak and short bursts which usually have very few counts. To deal with all bursts including weak ones, here we propose the coherent search in Poisson statistics. We studied the difference between Poisson-based and Gaussian-based search methods by Monte Carlo simulations, and find that the Poisson-based search method has advantages compared to the Gaussian case especially for weak bursts. Our results show that, for very weak bursts with very low number of counts, the Poisson-based search can provide higher significance than the Gaussian-based search, and its likelihood ratio (for background fluctuation) still generally follows the chi2 distribution, making the significance estimation of searched bursts very convenient. Thus, we suggest that the coherent search based on Poisson likelihood ratio is more appropriate in the search for generic transients including very weak ones., Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures

Early optical observations of gamma-ray bursts can significantly contribute to the study of the central engine and physical processes therein. However, of the thousands observed so far, still only a few have data at optical wavelengths in the first minutes after the onset of the prompt emission. Here we report on GRB\,190106A, whose afterglow was observed in optical bands just 36 s after the {\em Swift}/BAT trigger, i.e., during the prompt emission phase. The early optical afterglow exhibits a bimodal structure followed by a normal decay, with a faster decay after $\sim \rm T_{0}+$1 day. We present optical photometric and spectroscopic observations of GRB\,190106A. We derive the redshift via metal absorption lines from Xinglong 2.16-m/BFOSC spectroscopic observations. From the BFOSC spectrum, we measure $z= 1.861\pm0.002$. The double-peak optical light curve is a significant feature predicted by the reverse-forward external shock model. The shallow decay followed by a normal decay in both the X-ray and optical light curves is well explained with the standard forward-shock model with late-time energy injection. Therefore, GRB\,190106A offers a case study for GRBs emission from both reverse and forward shocks., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are highly dispersed millisecond-duration radio bursts, of which the physical origin is still not fully understood. FRB 20201124A is one of the most actively repeating FRBs. In this paper, we present the collection of 1863 burst dynamic spectra of FRB 20201124A measured with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). The current collection, taken from the observation during the FRB active phase from April to June 2021, is the largest burst sample detected in any FRB so far. The standard PSRFITs format is adopted, including dynamic spectra of the burst, and the time information of the dynamic spectra, in addition, mask files help readers to identify the pulse positions are also provided.

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., Comment: The paper has been accepted by Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

The precursors of short and long Gamma Ray Bursts (SGRBs and LGRBs) can serve as probes of their progenitors, as well as shedding light on the physical processes of mergers or core-collapse supernovae. Some models predict the possible existence of Quasi-Periodically Oscillations (QPO) in the precursors of SGRBs. Although many previous studies have performed QPO search in the main emission of SGRBs and LGRBs, so far there was no systematic QPO search in their precursors. In this work, we perform a detailed QPO search in the precursors of SGRBs and LGRBs detected by Fermi/GBM from 2008 to 2019 using the power density spectrum (PDS) in frequency domain and Gaussian processes (GP) in time domain. We do not find any convinced QPO signal with significance above 3 $\sigma$, possibly due to the low fluxes of precursors. Finally, the PDS continuum properties of both the precursors and main emissions are also studied for the first time, and no significant difference is found in the distributions of the PDS slope for precursors and main emissions in both SGRBs and LGRBs., Comment: submitted

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.

Here we report the spectral-timing results of the black hole X-ray binary 4U 1630-47 during its 2021 outburst using observations from the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope. Type-C quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in 1.6--4.2 Hz and quasi-regular modulation (QRM) near 60 mHz are detected during the outburst. The mHz QRM has a fractional rms of 10%--16% in the 8--35 keV energy band with a Q factor (frequency/width) of 2--4. Benefiting from the broad energy band of hxmt, we study the energy dependence of the 60 mHz QRM in 1--100 keV for the first time. We find that the fractional rms of the mHz QRM increases with photon energy, while the time lags of the mHz QRM are soft and decrease with photon energy. Fast recurrence of the mHz QRM, in a timescale of less than one hour, has been observed during the outburst. During this period, the corresponding energy spectra moderately change when the source transitions from the QRM state to the non-QRM state. The QRM phenomena also shows a dependence with the accretion rate. We suggest that the QRM could be caused by an unknown accretion instability aroused from the corona.

In the late inspiral phase of a double neutron star (NS) or NS-black hole system in which one NS is a magnetar, the tidal force on the magnetar arisen from its companion will increase dramatically as the binary approaches. The tidal-induced deformation may surpass the maximum that the magnetar's crust can sustain just seconds or subseconds before the coalescence. A catastrophic global crust destruction may thus occur, and the magnetic energy stored in the magnetar's interior will have the opportunity to be released, which would be observed as a superflare with energy 100s of times larger than giant flares of magnetars. Such a mechanism can naturally explain the recently observed precursor of GRB 211211A, including its quasiperiodic oscillation. We predict that in the coming gravitational wave O4/O5 period, there could be a fraction of detected double NS mergers associated with such super flares. If observed, copious information on the structure and magnetic field in an NS interior can be obtained, which is hard to study elsewhere., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, published in ApJL

Since FRB 200428 has been found to be associated with an X-ray burst from the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154, it is interesting to explore whether the magnetar bursts also follow the similar active periodic behavior as some repeating FRBs. Previous studies show that there is possible period about 230 day in SGR J1935+2154 bursts. Here, we collected an updated burst sample from SGR J1935+2154, including all bursts reported by Fermi/GBM and GECAM till 2022 January. We also developed a targeted search pipeline to reveal more bursts from SGR J1935+2154 in the Fermi/GBM data from 2008 August to 2014 December (i.e. before the first burst detected by Swift/BAT). With this burst sample, we re-analyzed the possible periodicity of SGR J1935+2154 bursts using the Period Folding and Lomb-Scargle Periodogram methods. Our results show that the periodicity $\sim$238 day reported in literature is probably fake and the observation effects may introduce false periods (i.e. 55 day) according to simulation tests. We find that, for the current burst sample, the most probable period is 126.88$\pm$2.05 day, which could be interpreted as the precession of the magnetar. However, we note that the whole burst history is very complicated and difficult to be perfectly accommodated with any period reported thus far, therefore more monitoring observations of SGR J1935+2154 are required to test any periodicity hypothesis.

The milestone discovery of GW 170817-GRB 170817A-AT 2017gfo has shown that gravitational wave (GW) could be produced during the merger of neutron star-neutron star/black hole and that in electromagnetic (EM) wave a gamma-ray burst (GRB) and a kilonova (KN) are generated in sequence after the merger. Observationally, however, EM property before the merger phase is still unclear. Here we report a peculiar precursor in a KN-associated long-duration GRB 211211A, providing evidence of the EM before the merger. This precursor lasts $\sim$ 0.2 s, and the waiting time between the precursor and the main burst is $\sim$ 1 s, comparable to that between GW 170817 and GRB 170817A. The spectrum of the precursor could be well fit with a non-thermal cutoff power-law model instead of a blackbody. Especially, a $\sim$22 Hz Quasi-Periodic Oscillation candidate ($\sim 3\sigma$) is detected in the precursor. These temporal and spectral properties indicate that this precursor is probably produced by a catastrophic flare accompanying with magnetoelastic or crustal oscillations of a magnetar in binary compact merger. The strong magnetic field of the magnetar can also account for the prolonged duration of GRB 211211A. However, it poses a challenge to reconcile the rather short lifetime of a magnetar with the rather long spiraling time of a binary neutron star system only by the GW radiation before merger., Comment: Published by ApJ. 13 pages, 11 figures

Since April 28, 2020, Insight-HXMT has implemented a dedicated observation on the magnetar SGR J1935+2154. Thanks to the wide energy band (1-250 keV) and high sensitivity of Insight-HXMT, we obtained 75 bursts from SGR J1935+2154 during a month-long activity episode after the emission of FRB 200428. Here, we report the detailed time-integrated spectral analysis of these bursts and the statistical distribution of the spectral parameters. We find that for 15%(11/75) of SGR J1935+2154 bursts, the CPL model is preferred, and most of them occurred in the latter part of this active epoch. In the cumulative fluence distribution, we find that the fluence of bursts in our sample is about an order of magnitude weaker than that of Fermi/GBM, but follows the same power law distribution. Finally, we find a burst with similar peak energy to the time-integrated spectrum of the X-ray burst associated with FRB 200428 (FRB 200428-Associated Burst), but the low energy index is harder., Comment: 35 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

The origin(s) and mechanism(s) of fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are short radio pulses from cosmological distances, have remained a major puzzle since their discovery. We report a strong Quasi-Periodic Oscillation(QPO) of 40 Hz in the X-ray burst from the magnetar SGR J1935+2154 and associated with FRB 200428, significantly detected with the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) and also hinted by the Konus-Wind data. QPOs from magnetar bursts have only been rarely detected; our 3.4 sigma (p-value is 2.9e-4) detection of the QPO reported here reveals the strongest QPO signal observed from magnetars (except in some very rare giant flares), making this X-ray burst unique among magnetar bursts. The two X-ray spikes coinciding with the two FRB pulses are also among the peaks of the QPO. Our results suggest that at least some FRBs are related to strong oscillation processes of neutron stars. We also show that we may overestimate the significance of the QPO signal and underestimate the errors of QPO parameters if QPO exists only in a fraction of the time series of a X-ray burst which we use to calculate the Leahy-normalized periodogram., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication by ApJ. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1212.1011 by other authors. text overlap with arXiv:1212.1011 by other authors

Magnetars are neutron stars with extreme magnetic field and sometimes manifest as soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs). SGR J1935+2154 is one of the most prolific bursters and the first confirmed source of fast radio burst (i.e. FRB 200428). Encouraged by the discovery of the first X-ray counterpart of FRB, Insight-Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) implemented a dedicated 33-day long ToO observation of SGR J1935+2154 since April 28, 2020. With the HE, ME, and LE telescopes, Insight-HXMT provides a thorough monitoring of burst activity evolution of SGR J1935+2154, in a very broad energy range (1-250 keV) with high temporal resolution and high sensitivity, resulting in a unique valuable data set for detailed studies of SGR J1935+2154. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of this observation including detailed burst search, identification and temporal analyses. After carefully removing false triggers, we find a total of 75 bursts from SGR J1935+2154, out of which 70 are single-pulsed. The maximum burst rate is about 56 bursts/day. Both the burst duration and the waiting time between two successive bursts follow log-normal distributions, consistent with previous studies. We also find that bursts with longer duration (some are multi-pulsed) tend to occur during the period with relatively high burst rate. There is no correlation between the waiting time and the fluence or duration of either the former or latter burst. It also seems that there is no correlation between burst duration and hardness ratio, in contrast to some previous reports. In addition, we do not find any X-ray burst associated with any reported radio bursts except for FRB 200428., Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT), is China's first X-ray astronomy satellite launched on June 15, 2017. The anti-coincidence CsI detectors of the High Energy X-ray telescope (HE) onboard Insight-HXMT could serve as an all-sky gamma-ray monitor in about 0.2-3 MeV. In its first four years of operation, Insight-HXMT has detected 322 Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) by offline search pipeline including blind search and targeted search. For the GOLDEN sample of Insight-HXMT GRBs, joint analyses were performed with other GRB missions, including Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi/GBM), Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift/BAT) and Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM). It shows that Insight-HXMT can provide better constraint on GRB spectrum at higher energy band. The properties of Insight-HXMT GRBs are reported in detail, including their trigger time, duration, spectral parameters, peak fluxes of different time scales and fluence. This catalog is an official product of the Insight-HXMT GRB team., Comment: 46 pages, 22 figures, accepted by APJS