Related papers: Shock Breakout from Stellar Envelopes: The relativ…
The formation of a core collapse supernovae (SNe) results in a fast (but non- or mildly-relativistic) shock wave expanding outwards into the surrounding medium. The medium itself is likely modified due to the stellar mass-loss from the…
Supernovae of Type IIn (narrow line) appear to be explosions that had strong mass loss before the event, so that the optical luminosity is powered by the circumstellar interaction. If the mass loss region has an optical depth $>c/v_s$,…
Gamma-ray bursts are often the brightest objects in the sky during their short life. Particle acceleration in trans-relativistic shocks, internal to the main blastwave, may explain the early intensity peaks, and particle acceleration in the…
Dense populations of stars surround the nuclear regions of galaxies. In active galactic nuclei, these stars can interact with the relativistic jets launched by the supermasive black hole. In this work, we study the interaction of early-type…
The X-ray emission from the circumstellar interaction in Type II supernovae with a dense circumstellar medium is calculated. In Type IIL and Type IIn supernovae mass loss rates are generally high enough for the region behind the reverse…
A leading mechanism for producing cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is via ultra-relativistic particles in an expanding fireball. The kinetic energy of the particles is converted into thermal energy in a forward shock and a reverse…
We discuss here constraints on the particle acceleration models from the observed gamma-ray bursts spectra. The standard synchrotron shock model assumes that some fraction of available energy is given instantaneously to the electrons which…
Nonrelativistic electrostatic unmagnetized shocks are frequently observed in laboratory plasmas and they are likely to exist in astrophysical plasmas. Their maximum speed, expressed in units of the ion acoustic speed far upstream of the…
A theory is proposed to explain with simplicity the basic observed properties of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB). It employs a well-known result of Schwinger, that static electric fields in excess of a critical value are unstable to pair creation,…
It is shown that an ultrarelativistic shock with the Lorentz factor of order of tens or higher propagating in a moderately dense interstellar medium (density above $\sim 1000 $ cm$^{-3}$) undergoes a fast dramatic transformation into a…
Eleven bright gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by BATSE have also been seen at much higher energies by EGRET, six at energies above 10 MeV. Such observations imply that these bursts are optically thin to photon-photon pair production at all…
In this work we present a mathematical model for the propagation of the shock waves that occur in graded density profiles. These waves can occur in a wide range of astrophysical events, such as collisions in planetary and stellar…
Acoustic shock waves passing through colliding cold neutron stars can cause repetitive superconducting phase transitions in which the proton condensate relaxes to its equilibrium value via coherent oscillations. As a result, a resonant…
Massive, luminous stars reaching the Eddington limit in their interiors develop very dilute, extended envelopes. This effect is called envelope inflation. If the progenitors of Type Ib/c supernovae, which are believed to be Wolf-Rayet (WR)…
The observed variability of BL Lac objects and Quasars on timescales <1 day (intraday variability, IDV) have revealed radio brightness temperatures up to 10^{16}-10^{20} K. These values challenge the beaming model with isotropic comoving…
Evidence for shocks in nova outflows include (1) multiple velocity components in the optical spectra; (2) keV X-ray emission weeks to months after the outburst; (3) early radio flare on timescales of months, in excess of that predicted from…
Thermal X-ray emission which is simultaneous with the prompt gamma-rays has been detected for the first time from a supernova connected with a gamma-ray burst (GRB), namely GRB060218/SN2006aj. It has been interpreted as arising from the…
Recent observations suggest that long-duration gamma-ray bursts and their afterglows are produced by highly relativistic jets emitted in core-collapse explosions. As the jet makes its way out of the stellar mantle, a bow shock runs ahead…
The structure of relativistic radiation mediated shocks (RRMS) propagating into a cold electron-proton plasma is calculated and analyzed. A qualitative discussion of the physics of relativistic and non relativistic shocks, including order…
We show that a collisionless shock necessarily forms during the shock breakout of a supernova (SN) surrounded by an optically thick wind. An intense non-thermal flash of <~ MeV gamma rays, hard X-rays and multi-TeV neutrinos is produced…