Exploration For universities in the west with relatively weak scientific research conditions, it is difficult to obtain research that can be harvested immediately, and only long-term hard work can make breakthroughs
Behind the world-class scientific research achievements of a western university
"It is one of the closest pulsar wind clouds to us, only about 900 light-years away."
Not long ago, at the results conference held by Guangxi University, Associate Professor Xie Fei, a young teacher and associate professor of the astronomy and space science and technology team of the school, pointed to a photo full of science fiction and introduced her as the only first author and corresponding author published in the international The latest discovery in the top journal "Nature" "X-ray polarization of the Vela pulsar wind cloud approaches the theoretical limit of synchrotron radiation".
The double rings with a purple halo on the photo are the unique structure of the Vela pulsar wind cloud. Driven by the rapidly rotating pulsar in the center, it emits light radiation of different bands such as radio, X-rays, and high-energy gamma rays. produce symmetrical rings.
Xie Fei and his collaborators used the X-ray imaging polarization telescope to discover that there is an extremely strong polarization in the Vela pulsar wind cloud, which is a target source with the highest degree of polarization currently detected by humans in the high-energy band.
Chang Jin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and director of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, commented that this achievement has measured the X-ray polarization degree of the Vela pulsar wind cloud close to the theoretical limit of synchrotron radiation with extremely high precision, which is the first time in human history.
This is also the first time that a local unit in Guangxi has completed a historic breakthrough in publishing a paper in Nature.
The leader of the astronomy and space science and technology team of Guangxi University said with emotion that this is a major scientific discovery that has been accumulated over ten years.
Open a new window and discover the surprises in the universe
At 3 o'clock in the morning, Xie Fei finished his work for the day.
Riding an electric scooter on the deserted Guangxi University campus, excitedly talking to students about the day's progress in scientific research.
Since receiving the source data in early May 2022, the project team led by Xie Fei often worked hard until the early hours of the morning until the article to be written was successfully submitted in June of that year.
As a member of Looking Up to the Sky, Xie Fei said that the achievement of scientific research breakthroughs is not achieved overnight, but a long-term accumulation process.
In 2011, Xie Fei started his master-doctoral studies at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
When she graduated with a Ph.D. in 2016, she firmly chose X-ray polarization as her research direction.
"In recent years, the research done by my colleagues has become more and more challenging." Xie Fei said that in the area of high-energy astrophysics, electromagnetic waves are the most important celestial messengers. Energy, time, position, and polarization are the four components of electromagnetic waves. Dimensional properties.
In the past few decades, scientists have done a lot of research in the three dimensions of energy, time, and position to help us understand how the universe was born and evolved, and how stars were produced.
In this case, increasing the biased dimension can open a new window for us to observe and understand the universe.
After graduating with a Ph.D., Xie Fei engaged in research on high-energy polarization detection technology in the scientific research teams in Sweden and Italy respectively.
At the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, she participated in the IXPE telescope project jointly developed by NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and gained the leading position in the analysis of primary data through competition within the group.
IXPE is the abbreviation of Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, which was launched on December 9, 2021 from the Kennedy Space Center in the United States on a carrier rocket.
At that time, Xie Fei had already returned to China and worked as an associate professor in the School of Physical Science and Engineering Technology of Guangxi University. He formed a research team to continue research.
Xie Fei is full of expectations for the scientific data of the IXPE telescope.
"In the first few days of observation, the Italian cooperative members told me that this source may be very high-biased, and I started to get excited at that time."
After getting the data, Xie Fei hardly took a vacation, usually returning home from the office at 12 o'clock in the middle of the night, and meeting and discussing with foreign teams three or four times a week.
"People may think that my job is to look up at the starry sky, which is very romantic, but in fact we spend most of the time sitting in front of the computer and processing data." Sometimes colleagues organize weekend outdoor activities in WeChat group chats, and Xie Fei only Can decline.
"I feel that after returning to China, apart from the office, I basically wander around the school every day. I have been in Nanning for more than a year, and I may get lost when I go to the urban area."
Liu Kuan is a doctoral student led by Xie Fei at Guangxi University. He joined the IXPE international cooperation team under the recommendation of Xie Fei.
In Liu Kuan's eyes, Xie Fei is a teacher who likes to "break the casserole and ask the end" in scientific research.
When the project was just started, everyone found an anomaly in the data.
"The students in the group didn't care about it at the time, but Mr. Xie Fei insisted on studying it clearly." So the team spent 3 days and finally proved that the data anomaly was caused by solar activity. If the research is abandoned, it may cause analysis. on the error.
After more than a month of data mining, Xie Fei's team found a surprise.
The Vela pulsar wind cloud observed by the research team is one of the brightest known pulsar wind clouds.
The study reports the X-ray polarization observations of the inner core region of the pulsar wind cloud, and the local polarization degree exceeds 60%, which is close to the limit value predicted by the synchrotron radiation theory.
This is the target source with the highest degree of polarization that humans have detected in the high-energy wave band so far, and it has given scientists a new understanding of the particle acceleration mechanism in the pulsar wind cloud.
"We can imagine that many physical processes in the universe are very violent, such as black holes swallowing matter, stars being torn apart, violent explosions in the depths of the universe, etc. But we see that the X-ray radiation of the Vela pulsar is so high, It shows that the magnetic field in its environment is very orderly, and basically there is no disturbance." Talking about the discovery of the project team, Xie Fei couldn't hide his surprise in his words.
Organized scientific research is like defending the mountain to fight wild boars
For Xie Fei's achievements, Professor Liang Enwei, leader of the astronomy and space science and technology team of Guangxi University, commented on it as "ten years of hard work".
Xie Fei has been immersed in the research field of space exploration for a full 10 years from his undergraduate graduation all the way to his postdoctoral fellow.
While others were enjoying the honors and rewards they received for publishing articles, Xie Fei Gan sat on the bench and concentrated on his own scientific research field.
As an important stop for the birth of the achievements of Xie Fei's team, Guangxi University, a local university located in the borderlands, has also gone through the process of "sharpening a sword for ten years".
Liang Enwei said that in the School of Physics, there is a professor named Liu Hongbang.
During his decades of teaching career, he has trained a large number of young top-notch scientific research talents with social care and family and country feelings.
Xie Fei also said that the reason why he came to Guangxi University is also because he attaches great importance to Mr. Liu Hongbang's research on space particle detection technology.
"When Mr. Liu Hongbang first came to work in the school, his monthly salary was only more than 4,000 yuan, but he didn't complain. He just started from scratch with a group of young teachers." Liang Enwei said that in 2012, the team of young teachers in the School of Physics began to lay on their own research path.
For a western university with relatively weak scientific research conditions, it is difficult to obtain those researches that can be harvested immediately, and only long-term hard work can make breakthroughs.
"We must settle down to do basic research." This is the experience that Wang Xianggao, executive vice president of the Scientific Research Institute of Guangxi University, repeatedly talked about in interviews.
In his opinion, in order to make a breakthrough, the team needs to carry out organized scientific research, focusing on "what to do" and "who will do it".
As for "what to do", Wang Xianggao said that to do it around major national scientific programs and major international frontiers, there must be a forward-looking layout.
As for "who will do it", he believes that it is crucial to the cultivation of young people.
"Our current talent introduction does not mean that we can come in as many articles as we can. We also need to keep up with our research direction and evaluate their work ability and future potential."
According to reports, the School of Physics of Guangxi University implements the PI system (academic team leader system). With the financial support of the school, teachers organize their own teams to do projects, allowing each team to freely explore in their own research directions.
In order to ensure everyone's academic freedom, starting from 2018, every young teacher who just came to the School of Physics can have an independent PI and form a team based on scientific interests.
Professor Liang Enwei, who grew up in the 100,000 mountains in Guangxi, popularly compares the academic technology research team to a pig hunting team in the countryside, and the common goal is to hunt wild boars.
Each member of the team joins in according to their own interests and expertise (resources), and under the common goal, ensures that the development of young people has its own direction, so as to achieve organized scientific research.
"Everyone who has hunted wild boars in the countryside knows a little bit. Who should be guarded on which hills must be arranged in advance before going to drive wild boars. Otherwise, if you keep following the wild boars, you will never catch up with it. You must carefully plan to chase and block it."
Under a series of scientific research layouts, the School of Physics of Guangxi University has achieved many major scientific research achievements in recent years.
At the end of 2020, the astrophysics team of the school participated in the use of the 500-meter-aperture radio telescope FAST, a major national scientific and technological infrastructure, to achieve a major breakthrough in the study of cosmic fast radio bursts, which was listed in the top ten international scientific and technological progress in 2020.
In May 2021, the "High Altitude Cosmic Ray Observatory" project, which the team participated in as a member of the cooperation group, detected the highest-energy cosmic ray photon so far, breaking through human beings' traditional understanding of the acceleration of ultra-high-energy particles in the Milky Way. ushered in the era of ultra-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy.
Frontier exploration is inseparable from an international perspective
However, if China's high-energy physics research wants to be at the forefront of the world, it is inseparable from the broadening of researchers' international vision.
Liu Kuan, a doctoral student who participated in the research as the backbone, believes that the cooperative relationship between Xie Fei and the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics guided their research and also contributed to the birth of this important achievement.
"If Mr. Xie hadn't gone to Italy, we would have no way to participate in this project." Liu Kuan said.
For Xie Fei, whether it is a teacher or a student, the study of science and technology must have a global perspective.
Xie Fei revealed that he reads the latest international cutting-edge academic articles every day to see what other people have done as basic knowledge acquisition.
On the blackboard in her office, there is a special list - "Shame List", which records the proportion of English that her students can understand when holding international conferences.
"I want to urge them to see this data from time to time and know how poor their English is." Xie Fei explained that in an international team, English is the most basic in order to obtain the latest information and the most cutting-edge scientific progress tool.
On this "Shame List", Liu Kuan is the student who can understand the most English content, and he said that he is also making continuous progress under the guidance of his teacher.
"Teacher Xie will directly ask me to send emails, interact with top foreign tutors, and help me modify the content of emails. He will often take us to international conferences."
Xie Fei said in the interview that he feels that doing scientific research is somewhat similar to climbing mountains.
Once, she and her friends went to climb Mount Huashan.
At that time, everyone at the foot of the mountain was fooled by the person who sold the cable car ticket saying "I can't climb to the top today", so we simply took the cable car to the top of the mountain.
Only Xie Fei climbed up by himself, "The feeling of climbing up by yourself is different from the feeling of going up by car."
Next, she will continue to explore the "infinite" universe picture by observing the "infinitely small" in the microcosm on the fertile scientific research ground provided by Guangxi University.
China Youth Daily China Youth Daily reporter Xie Yang correspondent Shi Xianxian Du Bin Source: China Youth Daily