Related papers: Optical Afterglows and IGM Attenuation
The detection of x-ray afterglows of gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources has enabled the optical discovery that GRBs are at cosmological distances, which confirms that the enormous luminosities required must produce a relativistically expanding…
The detection of delayed emission in X-ray, optical and radio wave length, ``afterglow'', following a gamma-ray burst can be described by the emission of a relativistic shell decelerating upon collision with the ISM. We show that the…
The present common view about GRB origin is related to cosmology, what is based on statistical analysis, and on measurements of the redshifts in the GRB optical afterglows of long GRB. No correlation is found between redshifts, GRB…
The detection of optical re-brightenings and X-ray plateaus in the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) challenges the generic external shock model. Recently, we have developed a numerical method to calculate the dynamic of the system…
We use a large sample of GRB afterglow and prompt-emission data (adding further GRB afterglow observations in this work) to compare the optical afterglows (or the lack thereof) of Type I GRBs with those of Type II GRBs. In comparison to the…
The polarization of the optical afterglow (AG) of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) has only been measured in a few instances at various times after the GRB. In all cases except the best measured one (GRB 030329) the observed polarization and its…
The discoveries that GRBs have X-ray, optical and radio afterglows have connected the study of GRBs to the rest of astronomy, and revolutionized the field. In this review, I discuss the implications that the observation of these afterglows…
We review current research related to spectroscopy of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows with particular emphasis on the interstellar medium (ISM) of the galaxies hosting these high redshift events. These studies reveal the physical…
Absorption and Reprocessing of Gamma-ray burst radiation in the environment of cosmological GRBs can be used as a powerful probe of the elusive nature of their progenitors. In particular, transient X-ray emission line and absorption…
The properties of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows are used to investigate the location of star formation activity through the history of the Universe. This approach is motivated by the following: (i) GRBs are thought to be…
We calculate the expected spectrum and light curves of the early afterglow. For short GRBs the peak of the afterglow will be delayed, typically, by a few dozens of seconds after the burst. The x-ray and gamma-ray characteristics of this…
While all but one Gamma-Ray Bursts observed in the X-ray band showed an X-ray afterglow, about 60 per cent of them have not been detected in the optical band. We demonstrate that in many cases this is not due to adverse observing…
We compare the HI column densities from Ly-alpha absorption to the metal column densities from X-ray absorption in gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Eight bursts of seventeen entering the sample, have significant extragalactic X-ray…
The precise localization of short/hard (Type I) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in recent years has answered many questions but raised even more. I present some results of a systematic study of the optical afterglows of long/soft (Type II) and…
We applied cosmological and absorption corrections to the X-ray and optical afterglow fluxes of a sample of Gamma-Ray Burst sources of known distance. We find a good correlation in X-rays and that the GRBs in our sample form two well…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to be powered by ultrarelativistic jets. If these jets encounter and accelerate excess electrons and positrons produced by particle dark matter (DM) annihilation, the observed electromagnetic radiation…
I review gamma-ray burst optical/multiwavelength afterglow observations since 1997, when the first counterparts to GRBs were discovered. I discuss what we have learned from multiwavelength observations of GRB afterglows in relation to the…
GRBs are expected to occur at redshifts far higher than the highest quasar redshifts so far detected. And unlike quasars, GRB afterglows may provide "clean" probes of the epoch of reionization because no complications (such as the presence…
A recent spectrum of the optical afterglow of GRB 970508 suggests that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmological in origin and it is of crucial importance to derive an accurate distance to each burst. If GRBs occur near their host galaxies…
We show how the observed gamma ray burst (GRB) optical afterglow (OA) and redshift distributions are changing in time from selection effects. For a subset of {\it Swift} triggered long duration bursts, we show that the mean time taken to…