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Zhiqi Huang

Zhiqi Huang contributes to research discovery and scholarly infrastructure.

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Published work

18 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

BabyVision: Visual Reasoning Beyond Language

While humans develop core visual skills long before acquiring language, contemporary Multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) still rely heavily on linguistic priors to compensate for their fragile visual understanding. We uncovered a crucial fact: state-of-the-art MLLMs consistently fail on basic visual tasks that humans, even 3-year-olds, can solve effortlessly. To systematically investigate this gap, we introduce BabyVision, a benchmark designed to assess core visual abilities independent of linguistic knowledge for MLLMs. BabyVision spans a wide range of tasks, with 388 items divided into 22 subclasses across four key categories. Empirical results and human evaluation reveal that leading MLLMs perform significantly below human baselines. Gemini3-Pro-Preview scores 49.7, lagging behind 6-year-old humans and falling well behind the average adult score of 94.1. These results show despite excelling in knowledge-heavy evaluations, current MLLMs still lack fundamental visual primitives. Progress in BabyVision represents a step toward human-level visual perception and reasoning capabilities. We also explore solving visual reasoning with generation models by proposing BabyVision-Gen and automatic evaluation toolkit. Our code and benchmark data are released at https://github.com/UniPat-AI/BabyVision for reproduction.

preprint2026arXiv

TCDA: Thread-Constrained Discourse-Aware Modeling for Conversational Sentiment Quadruple Analysis

Conversational Aspect-based Sentiment Quadruple Analysis (DiaASQ) needs to capture the complex interrelationships in multiple rounds of dialogues. Existing methods usually employ simple Graph Convolutional Networks (GCN), which introduce structural noise and fail to consider the temporal sequence of the dialogues, or use standard RoPE, which implicitly captures relative distances in a flat sequence but cannot clearly separate the token-level syntactic order from the utterance-level progression, and may suffer from the Distance Dilution problem. To address these issues, we propose a new framework that combines Thread-Constrained Directed Acyclic Graph (TC-DAG) and Discourse-Aware Rotary Position Embedding (D-RoPE). Specifically, TC-DAG filters out cross-thread noise based on thread constraints, maintains global connectivity through root anchoring, and incorporates the temporal sequence of the dialogues. D-RoPE aligns multi-layer semantics using dual-stream projection and multi-scale frequency signals, captures thread dependencies using tree-like distances, and alleviates the token-level Distance Dilution problem by incorporating utterance-level progressions. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets demonstrate that our framework achieves state-of-the-art performance.

preprint2025arXiv

Introduction to the Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST)

The Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST) is an upcoming Stage-IV sky survey telescope, distinguished by its large field of view (FoV), high image quality, and multi-band observation capabilities. It can simultaneously conduct precise measurements of the Universe by performing multi-color photometric imaging and slitless spectroscopic surveys. The CSST is equipped with five scientific instruments, i.e. Multi-band Imaging and Slitless Spectroscopy Survey Camera (SC), Multi-Channel Imager (MCI), Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS), Cool Planet Imaging Coronagraph (CPI-C), and THz Spectrometer (TS). Using these instruments, CSST is expected to make significant contributions and discoveries across various astronomical fields, including cosmology, galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN), the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, stars, exoplanets, Solar System objects, astrometry, and transients and variable sources. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the CSST instruments, observational capabilities, data products, and scientific potential.

preprint2022arXiv

Constraints on the abundance of primordial black holes with different mass distributions from lensing of fast radio bursts

Primordial black holes (PBHs) has been considered to form a part of dark matter for a long time but the possibility has been poorly constrained over a wide mass range, including the stellar mass range ($1-100~M_{\odot}$). However, due to the discovery of merger events of black hole binaries by LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave observatories, the interest for PBHs in the stellar mass window has been aroused again. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond duration and very high all-sky occurrence rate. Lensing effect of these bursts has been proposed as one of the optimal probes for constraining the abundance of PBHs in the stellar mass range. In this paper, we first investigate constraints on the abundance of PBHs from the latest $593$ FRB observations for both the monochromatic mass distribution and three other popular extended mass distributions related to different formation mechanisms of PBHs. It is found that constraints from currently public FRB observations are relatively weaker than those from existing gravitational wave detections. Furthermore, we forecast constraining power of future FRB observations on the abundance of PBHs with different mass distributions of PBHs and different redshift distributions of FRBs taken into account. Finally, We find that constraints of parameter space on extended mass distributions from $\sim10^5$ FRBs with $\overline{Δt}\leq1 ~\rm ms$ would be comparable with what can be constrained from gravitational wave events. It is foreseen that upcoming complementary multi-messenger observations will yield considerable constraints on the possibilities of PBHs in this intriguing mass window.

preprint2022arXiv

Constraints on the abundance of supermassive primordial black holes from lensing of compact radio sources

The possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) form a part of dark matter has been considered over a wide mass range from the Planck mass ($10^{-5}~\rm g$) to the level of the supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy. Primordial origin might be one of the most important formation channel of supermassive black holes. We use the non-detection of lensing effect of very long baseline interferometer observations of compact radio sources with extremely high angular resolution as a promising probe to constrain the abundance of intergalactic PBHs in the mass range $\sim10^4$-$10^9~M_{\odot}$. For a sample of well-measured 543 flat-spectrum compact radio sources, no milli-lensed images are found with angular separations between $1.5$ milli-arcseconds and $50$ milli-arcseconds. From this null search result, we derive that the fraction of dark matter made up of supermassive PBHs in the mass range $\sim10^6$-$10^8~M_{\odot}$ is $\lesssim1.48\%$ at $95\%$ confidence level. This constraints would be significantly improved due to the rapid increase of the number of measured compact radio sources. For instance, on the basis of none confirmed milli-lensing candidate in the latest $\sim14000$ sources, we derive the abundance of supermassive PBHs and obtain that it is $\lesssim0.06\%$ at $95\%$ confidence level.

preprint2022arXiv

Cosmological constraints from the density gradient weighted correlation function

The mark weighted correlation function (MCF) $W(s,μ)$ is a computationally efficient statistical measure which can probe clustering information beyond that of the conventional 2-point statistics. In this work, we extend the traditional mark weighted statistics by using powers of the density field gradient $|\nabla ρ/ρ|^α$ as the weight, and use the angular dependence of the scale-averaged MCFs to constrain cosmological parameters. The analysis shows that the gradient based weighting scheme is statistically more powerful than the density based weighting scheme, while combining the two schemes together is more powerful than separately using either of them. Utilising the density weighted or the gradient weighted MCFs with $α=0.5,\ 1$, we can strengthen the constraint on $Ω_m$ by factors of 2 or 4, respectively, compared with the standard 2-point correlation function, while simultaneously using the MCFs of the two weighting schemes together can be $1.25$ times more statistically powerful than using the gradient weighting scheme alone. The mark weighted statistics may play an important role in cosmological analysis of future large-scale surveys. Many issues, including the possibility of using other types of weights, the influence of the bias on this statistics, as well as the usage of MCFs in the tomographic Alcock-Paczynski method, are worth further investigations.

preprint2022arXiv

Revisiting the quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination

The quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination, recently suggested by Kereselidze et al., is a non-standard process where an electron and two neighboring protons in the early universe directly form an ionized hydrogen molecule in a highly excited state, which then descends to lower levels or dissociates. It has been suggested that the increased binding energy due to the participation of a second proton may lead to an earlier cosmic recombination that alleviates the Hubble tension. Revisiting the quasi-molecular channel of recombination in more details, we find that the original work significantly overestimated the probability of finding a pair of adjacent protons in the relevant epoch ($z\sim $ a few thousand). Our new estimation suggests that the quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination cannot be the primary cause of the Hubble tension.

preprint2022arXiv

Search for lensing signatures from the latest fast radio burst observations and constraints on the abundance of primordial black holes

The possibility that primordial black holes (PBHs) form a part of dark matter has been considered for a long time but poorly constrained over a wide mass range. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond duration. Lensing effect of them has been proposed as one of the cleanest probes for constraining the presence of PBHs in the stellar mass window. In this paper, we first apply the normalised cross-correlation algorithm to search and identify candidates of lensed FRBs in the latest public FRB observations, i.e. $593$ FRBs which mainly consist of the first Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment FRB catalog, and then derive constraints on the abundance of PBHs from the null search result of lensing signature. For a monochromatic mass distribution, the fraction of dark matter made up of PBHs could be constrained to $\leq87\%$ for $\geq500~M_{\odot}$ at 95\% confidence level by assuming flux ratio thresholds dependent signal-to-noise ratio for each FRB and that apparently one-off events are intrinsic single bursts. This result would be improved by a three times factor when a conventional constant flux ratio threshold is considered. Moreover, we derive constraints on PBHs with a log-normal mass function naturally predicted by some popular inflation models and often investigated with gravitational wave detections. We find that, in this mass distribution scenario, the constraint from currently public FRB observations is relatively weaker than the one from gravitational wave detections. It is foreseen that upcoming complementary multi-messenger observations will yield considerable constraints on the possibilities of PBHs in this intriguing mass window.

preprint2022arXiv

Thawing k-essence dark energy in the PAge space

A broad class of dark energy models can be written in the form of k-essence, whose Lagrangian density is a two-variable function of a scalar field $ϕ$ and its kinetic energy $X\equiv \frac{1}{2}\partial^μϕ\partial_μϕ$. In the thawing scenario, the scalar field becomes dynamic only when the Hubble friction drops below its mass scale in the late universe. Thawing k-essence dark energy models can be randomly sampled by generating the Taylor expansion coefficients of its Lagrangian density from random matrices \cite{thaws}. Ref. \cite{thaws} points out that the non-uniform distribution of effective equation of state parameters $(w_0, w_a)$ of thawing k-essence model can be used to improve the statistics of model selection. The present work studies the statistics of thawing k-essence in a more general framework that is Parameterized by the Age of the universe (PAge) \cite{PAge}. For fixed matter fraction $Ω_m$, the random thawing k-essence models cluster in a narrow band in the PAge parameter space, providing a strong theoretical prior. We simulate cosmic shear power spectrum data for the Chinese Space Station Telescope optical survey, and compare the fisher forecast with and without the theoretical prior of thawing k-essence. For an optimal tomography binning scheme, the theoretical prior improves the figure of merit in PAge space by a factor of $3.3$.

preprint2022arXiv

The $S_8$ Tension in Light of Updated Redshift-Space Distortion Data and PAge Approximation

One of the most prominent challenges to the standard Lambda cold dark matter ($Λ$CDM) cosmology is the tension between the structure growth parameter $S_8$ constrained by the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and the smaller one suggested by the cosmic shear data. Recent studies show that, for $Λ$CDM cosmology, redshift-space distortion (RSD) data also prefers a smaller $S_8$ that is $\sim 2$-$3σ$ lower than the CMB value, but the result is sensitive to the cosmological model. In the present work we update the RSD constraint on $S_8$ with the most up-to-date RSD data set where the correlation between data points are properly taken into account. To reduce the model dependence, we add in our Monte Carlo Markov Chain calculation the most up-to-date data sets of Type Ia supernovae (SN) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), whose correlation with RSD is also taken into account, to constrain the background geometry. For $Λ$CDM cosmology we find $S_8= 0.812 \pm 0.026$, which is $\sim 2σ$ larger than previous studies, and hence is consistent with the CMB constraint. By replacing $Λ$CDM with the Parameterization based on cosmic Age (PAge), an almost model-independent description of the late universe, we find that the RSD + SN + BAO constraint on $S_8$ is insensitive to the cosmological model.

preprint2022arXiv

The Galactic interstellar medium has a preferred handedness of magnetic misalignment

The Planck mission detected a positive correlation between the intensity ($T$) and $B$-mode polarization of the Galactic thermal dust emission. The $TB$ correlation is a parity-odd signal, whose statistical mean vanishes in models with mirror symmetry. Recent work has shown with strong evidence that local handedness of the misalignment between the dust filaments and the sky-projected magnetic field produces $TB$ signals. However, it remains unclear whether the observed global $TB$ signal is caused by statistical fluctuations of magnetic misalignment angles, or whether some parity-violating physics in the interstellar medium sets a preferred misalignment handedness. The present work aims to make a quantitative statement about how confidently the statistical-fluctuation interpretation is ruled out by filament-based simulations of polarized dust emission. We use the publicly available DUSTFILAMENTS code to simulate the dust emission from filaments whose magnetic misalignment angles are symmetrically randomized, and construct the probability density function of $ξ_{p}$, a weighted sum of $TB$ power spectrum. We find that Planck data has a $\gtrsim 10σ$ tension with the simulated $ξ_{p}$ distribution. Our results strongly support that the Galactic filament misalignment has a preferred handedness, whose physical origin is yet to be identified.

preprint2020arXiv

Band-limited Features in the Primordial Power Spectrum Do Not Resolve the Hubble Tension

For a standard $Λ$CDM universe with a power-law primordial power spectrum, the discrepancy between early- and late-universe measurements of the Hubble constant continued to grow and recently reached $5.3σ$. During inflation, local features in the inflationary potential often lead to band-limited features in the primordial power spectrum, hence breaking the power-law assumption in the derivation of the Hubble tension. We investigate whether such inflationary "glitches" can ease the Hubble tension. The recently released \emph{Planck} temperature and polarization data and the 2019 SH0ES+H0LiCOW joint constraint on the Hubble constant are combined to drive a blind Daubechies wavelet signal search in the primordial power spectrum, up to a resolution $Δ\ln k\sim 0.1$. We find no significant detection of any features beyond power law. With 64 more degrees of freedom injected in the primordial power spectrum, the Hubble tension persists at a $4.9σ$ level.

preprint2020arXiv

Supernova Magnitude Evolution and PAge Approximation

The evidence of environmental dependence of Type Ia supernova luminosity has inspired recent discussion about whether the late-universe cosmic acceleration is still supported by supernova data. We adopt the $Δ\mathrm{HR}/Δ\mathrm{age}$ parameter, which describes the dependence of supernova absolute magnitude on the age of supernova progenitor, as an additional nuisance parameter. Using the Pantheon supernova data, a lower bound $\ge 12\,\mathrm{Gyr}$ on the cosmic age, and a Gaussian prior $H_0 = 70\pm 2\,\mathrm{km\,s^{-1}Mpc^{-1}}$ on the Hubble constant, we reconstruct the cosmic expansion history. Within the flat $Λ$ cold dark matter ($Λ$CDM) framework, we still find a $5.6σ$ detection of cosmic acceleration. This is because a matter dominated decelerating universe would be too young to accommodate observed old stars with age $\gtrsim 12\,\mathrm{Gyr}$. A decelerating but non-flat universe is marginally consistent with the data, however, only in the presence of a negative spatial curvature $\sim$ two orders of magnitude beyond the current constraint from cosmic microwave background data. Finally, we propose a more general Parameterization based on the cosmic Age (PAge), which is {\it not} directly tied to the dark energy concept and hence is ideal for a null test of the cosmic acceleration. We find that, for a magnitude evolution rate $Δ\mathrm{HR}/Δ\mathrm{age} \lesssim 0.3\,\mathrm{mag}/5.3\,\mathrm{Gyr}$ (Kang et al. 2020), a spatially flat and decelerating PAge universe is fully consistent with the supernova data and the cosmic age bound, and has no tension with the geometric constraint from the observed CMB acoustic angular scales.

preprint2019arXiv

Can Non-standard Recombination Resolve the Hubble Tension?

The inconsistent Hubble constant values derived from cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations and from local distance-ladder measurements may suggest new physics beyond the standard $Λ$CDM paradigm. It has been found in earlier works that, at least phenomenologically, non-standard recombination histories can reduce the $\gtrsim 4σ$ Hubble tension to $\sim 2σ$. Following this path, we vary physical and phenomenological parameters in RECFAST, the standard code to compute ionization history of the universe, to explore possible physics beyond standard recombination. We find that the CMB constraint on the Hubble constant is sensitive to the Hydrogen ionization energy and $2s \rightarrow 1s$ two-photon decay rate, both of which are atomic constants, and is insensitive to other details of recombination. Thus, the Hubble tension is very robust against perturbations of recombination history, unless exotic physics modifies the atomic constants during the recombination epoch.

preprint2011arXiv

The Art of Lattice and Gravity Waves from Preheating

The nonlinear dynamics of preheating after early-Universe inflation is often studied with lattice simulations. In this work I present a new lattice code HLATTICE. It differs from previous public available codes in the following three aspects: (i) A much higher accuracy is achieved with a modified sixth-order symplectic integrator; (ii) scalar, vector, and tensor metric perturbations in synchronous gauge and their feedback to the dynamics of scalar fields are all included; (iii) the code uses a projector that completely removes the scalar and vector components defined by the discrete spatial derivatives. Such a generic code can have wide range of applications. As an example, gravity waves from preheating after inflation are calculated with a better accuracy.

preprint2010arXiv

Parameterizing and Measuring Dark Energy Trajectories from Late-Inflatons

Bulk dark energy properties are determined by the redshift evolution of its pressure-to-density ratio, $w_{de}(z)$. An experimental goal is to decide if the dark energy is dynamical, as in the quintessence (and phantom) models treated here. We show that a three-parameter approximation $w_{de}(z; ε_s, ε_{ϕ\infty}, ζ_s)$ fits well the ensemble of trajectories for a wide class of late-inflaton potentials $V(ϕ)$. Markov Chain Monte Carlo probability calculations are used to confront our $w_{de}(z)$ trajectories with current observational information on Type Ia supernova, Cosmic Microwave Background, galaxy power spectra, weak lensing and the Lyman-$α$ forest. We find the best constrained parameter is a low redshift slope parameter, $ε_s \propto (\partial \ln V / \partial ϕ)^2$ when the dark energy and matter have equal energy densities. A tracking parameter $ε_{ϕ\infty}$ defining the high-redshift attractor of $1+w_{de}$ is marginally constrained. Poorly determined is $ζ_s$, characterizing the evolution of $ε_s$, and a measure of $\partial^2 \ln V / \partial ϕ^2$ . The constraints we find already rule out some popular quintessence and phantom models, or restrict their potential parameters. We also forecast how the next generation of cosmological observations improve the constraints: by a factor of about five on $ε_s$ and $ε_{ϕ\infty}$, but with $ζ_s$ remaining unconstrained (unless the true model significantly deviates from $Λ$CDM). Thus potential reconstruction beyond an overall height and a gradient is not feasible for the large space of late-inflaton models considered here.

preprint2009arXiv

Particle Production During Inflation: Observational Constraints and Signatures

In a variety of inflation models the motion of the inflaton may trigger the production of some non-inflaton particles during inflation, for example via parametric resonance or a phase transition. Particle production during inflation leads to observables in the cosmological fluctuations, such as features in the primordial power spectrum and also nongaussianities. Here we focus on a prototype scenario with inflaton, ϕ, and iso-inflaton, χ, fields interacting during inflation via the coupling g^2 (ϕ-ϕ_0)^2χ^2. Since several previous investigations have hinted at the presence of localized "glitches" in the observed primordial power spectrum, which are inconsistent with the simplest power-law model, it is interesting to determine the extent to which such anomalies can be explained by this simple and well-motivated model. Our prototype scenario predicts a bump-like feature in the primordial power spectrum, rather than an oscillatory "ringing" pattern as has previously been assumed. We discuss the observational constraints on such features. We find that bumps with amplitude as large as 10% of the usual scale invariant fluctuations from inflation are allowed on scales relevant for Cosmic Microwave Background experiments. Our results imply an upper limit on the coupling g^2 which is crucial for assessing the detectability of the nongaussianity produced by inflationary particle production. We also discuss more complicated features that result from superposing multiple instances of particle production. Finally, we point to a number of microscopic realizations of this scenario in string theory and supersymmetry and discuss the implications of our constraints for the popular brane/axion monodromy inflation models.

preprint2009arXiv

Preheating After Modular Inflation

We study (p)reheating in modular (closed string) inflationary scenarios, with a special emphasis on Kahler moduli/Roulette models. It is usually assumed that reheating in such models occurs through perturbative decays. However, we find that there are very strong non-perturbative preheating decay channels related to the particular shape of the inflaton potential (which is highly nonlinear and has a very steep minimum). Preheating after modular inflation, proceeding through a combination of tachyonic instability and broad-band parametric resonance, is perhaps the most violent example of preheating after inflation known in the literature. Further, we consider the subsequent transfer of energy to the standard model sector in scenarios where the standard model particles are confined to a D7-brane wrapping the inflationary blow-up cycle of the compactification manifold or, more interestingly, a non-inflationary blow up cycle. We explicitly identify the decay channels of the inflaton in these two scenarios. We also consider the case where the inflationary cycle shrinks to the string scale at the end of inflation; here a field theoretical treatment of reheating is insufficient and one must turn instead to a stringy description. We estimate the decay rate of the inflaton and the reheat temperature for various scenarios.