On the origin of X-ray Flashes
Astrophysics
2009-11-10 v2
Abstract
We use the cannonball (CB) model of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows (AGs) to analyze the observational data on X-ray flashes (XRFs) and their AGs. We show that the observations support the CB-model interpretation that XRFs, like GRBs, are produced by the explosions of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) akin to SN1998bw, by jets of highly-relativistic CBs. The XRFs and GRBs are intrinsically identical objects, but the XRFs are viewed from angles (relative to the jet direction) which are typically a few times larger than the typical viewing angles of ``classical'', long-duration GRBs. There should be XRFs, not observed so far, with durations similar to those of short GRBs.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0309294,
title = {On the origin of X-ray Flashes},
author = {Shlomo Dado and Arnon Dar and Alvaro De Rujula},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0309294},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&A