Related papers: Mass Fall-back and Accretion in the Central Engine…
We provide a comprehensive review of major developments in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts, with particular focus on the discoveries made within the last fifteen years when their true nature was uncovered. We describe the…
Leading models for the "central engine" of long, soft gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are briefly reviewed with emphasis on the collapsar model. Growing evidence supports the hypothesis that GRBs are a supernova-like phenomenon occurring in star…
Some fraction of the material ejected in a core collapse supernova explosion may remain bound to the compact remnant, and eventually turn around and fall back. We show that the late time (> days) power associated with the accretion of this…
A neutrino-dominated accretion disk around a stellar-mass black hole (BH) can power a gamma-ray burst (GRB) via annihilation of neutrinos launched from the disk. For the BH hyperaccretion system, high accretion rate should trigger the…
Rapid, hyper-Eddington accretion is likely to power the central engines of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In the extreme conditions of densities and temperatures the accreting torus is cooled by neutrino emission rather than by radiation. Another…
Giant Eruptions (GEs) are episodic high-rate mass loss events that massive stars experience in the late stage of evolutions before exploding as a core-collapse supernova. If it occurs in a binary system, the companion star can accrete part…
The nature of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) central engine still remains an enigma. Entities widely believed to be capable of powering the extreme jets are magnetars and black holes. The maximum rotational energy that is available in a…
Black holes generate collimated, relativistic jets which have been observed in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), microquasars, and at the center of some galaxies (active galactic nuclei; AGN). How jet physics scales from stellar black holes in GRBs…
We present the analysis of a large sample of gamma-ray burst (GRB) X-ray light curves in the rest frame to characterise their intrinsic properties in the context of different theoretical scenarios. We determine the morphology, time scales,…
For the collapsar scenario to be effective in the production of Gamma Ray Bursts, the infalling star's angular momentum $J(r)$ must be larger than the critical angular momentum needed to form an accretion disk around a blackhole (BH),…
Gamma ray bursts (GRB's) often feature subpulses that have a distinctively asymmetric profile -- they rise quickly and decay much more slowly, while their spectrum softens slightly with observer time. It is suggested that these subpulses…
After many years of speculation, recent observations have confirmed the association of gamma-ray bursts with core-collapse supernova explosions from massive stars. This association carries with it important consequences. The burst…
We explore low angular momentum accretion flows onto black holes formed after the collapse of massive stellar cores. In particular, we consider the state of the gas falling quasi-spherically onto stellar-mass black holes in the…
We present observations of the early X-ray emission for a sample of 40 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) obtained using the Swift satellite for which the narrow-field instruments were pointed at the burst within 10 minutes of the trigger. Using data…
The X-ray emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is often characterized by an initial steep decay, followed by a nearly constant emission phase (so called "plateau") which can extend up to thousands of seconds. While the steep decay is usually…
Gamma-ray bursts with long durations are widely thought to arise from the collapse of massive stars, where the wind environment is unavoidable. It is also believed that $\gamma$-ray bursts come from jets. Considering these two points in…
According the Collapsar model long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) involve relativistic jets that puncture the envelope of a collapsing star, and produced the \gamma-rays after they break out. This model provides a theoretical framework for the…
Flares in the X-ray afterglow of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) share more characteristics with the prompt emission than the afterglow, such as pulse profile and contained fluence. As a result, they are believed to originate from late-time…
Using a set of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations that include proper neutrino transfer, we assess for the first time the role played by the fallback accretion onto the remnant from a binary neutron-star merger over a…
It is now generally accepted that long-duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are due to the collapse of massive rotating stars. The precise collapse process itself, however, is not yet fully understood. Strong winds, outbursts, and intense…