English

Constraining the bulk Lorentz factor from the photosphere emission

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2015-05-27 v1

Abstract

We propose a direct and model-independent method to constrain the Lorentz factor of a relativistically expanding object, like gamma-ray bursts. Only the measurements, such as thermal component of the emission, the distance and the variable time scale of the light curve, are used. If the uncertainties are considered, we will obtain lower limits of the Lorentz factor instead. We apply this method to GRB 090618 and get a lower limit of the Lorentz factor to be 22. The method can be used to any relativistically moving object, such as gamma-ray bursts, blazars, and soft gamma-ray repeaters, providing the thermal component of the emission being observed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1501.06132,
  title  = {Constraining the bulk Lorentz factor from the photosphere emission},
  author = {Yuan-Chuan Zou and K. S. Cheng and F. Y. Wang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.06132},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

10 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-06-22T08:12:18.107Z