Related papers: Astrophysics: Most distant cosmic blast seen
This article gives an overview of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their relation to astroparticle physics and cosmology. GRBs are the most powerful explosions in the universe that occur roughly once per day and are characterized by flashes of…
Gamma-ray bursts GRBs are among the most mysterious astronomical phenomenon ever discovered. Unlike most astronomical discoveries which were explained within weeks or months after their initial discovery, GRBs remain a puzzle for more than…
This paper presents a brief review of the current status of ultrahigh energy cosmic ray observations and discusses nearby starburst-like galaxies as their possible origin.
Cosmic ray story begins at the beginning of XX century. More then 100 years later, most of the main issues are still open questions, as sources, acceleration mechanism, propagation and composition. There is a continuing fascination with the…
The origin of cosmic gamma-ray bursts remains one of the most intriguing puzzles in astronomy. We suggest that purely general relativistic effects in the collapse of massive stars could account for these bursts. The late formation of closed…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRB) are sudden, intense flashes of gamma-rays which, for a few blinding seconds, light up in an otherwise fairly dark gamma-ray sky. They are detected at the rate of about once a day, and while they are on, they outshine…
Gamma ray Bursts (GRBs) - short bursts of few hundred keV $\gamma$-rays - have fascinated astronomers since their accidental discovery in the sixties. GRBs were ignored by most relativists who did not expect that they are associated with…
Quasars, the brightly glowing disks of material that can form around the super-massive black holes at the centres of large galaxies, are amongst the most luminous astronomical objects known and so can be seen at great distances. The most…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous electromagnetic explosions in the Universe, which emit up to $8.8\times10^{54}$ erg isotropic equivalent energy in the hard X-ray band. The high luminosity makes them detectable out to the…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful cosmic explosions since the Big Bang, and thus act as signposts throughout the distant Universe. Over the last 2 decades, these ultra-luminous cosmological explosions have been transformed from…
The little we do know of the physical conditions in gamma-ray bursters makes them conducive to the acceleration of high-energy cosmic rays, especially if they are at cosmological distances. We find that, with the observed statistics and…
Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are bright flashes of high energy photons that can last from about 10 milliseconds to 10 minutes. Their origin and nature have puzzled the scientific community for about 25 years until 1997, when the first X-ray…
The paper presents the nowdays definition of the phenomenon of cosmic gamma ray bursts, refers to the main alternative models of their origin and proposes three promising domains of new observations in the incoming decade.
The origin of dark bursts - i.e. that have no observed afterglows in X-ray, optical/NIR and radio ranges - is unclear yet. Different possibilities - instrumental biases, very high redshifts, extinction in the host galaxies - are discussed…
Forty years have passed since the first Explorer orbiting observatory - the 1958 mission used to discover the Van Allen radiation belts outside the atmosphere - ushered in the modern age of space science. Even though in situ observations of…
The most distant quasar yet discovered sets constraints on the formation mechanism of black holes. Its light spectrum has tantalizing features that are expected to be observed before the reionization epoch ended.
Assuming that cosmic rays entering the Earth's atmosphere contain a small admixture of nuggets of strange quark matter in form of strangelets one can explain a number of apparently "strange" effects observed in different cosmic rays…
In the early years, cosmic rays contributed essentially to particle physics through the discovery of new particles. Will history repeat itself? As with the discovery of the charged pion, the recent discovery of a Higgs-like boson may…
The smallest dwarf galaxies are the most straight forward objects in which to study star formation processes on a galactic scale. They are typically single cell star forming entities, and as small potentials in orbit around a much larger…
In 1997 the first optical afterglow of a cosmic Gamma-Ray Burst was discovered, and substantial progress has been achieved since then. Here we present a short review of some recent developments in this field, with emphasis on observational…