Related papers: Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow emission with a decaying…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow emission is believed to be produced by synchrotron emission of electrons accelerated to high energy by a relativistic collisionless shock propagating into a weakly magnetized plasma. Afterglow observations…
We compute the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts produced by purely electromagnetic outflows to see if it shows characteristic signatures differing from those obtained with the standard internal/external shock model. Using a simple approach for…
Gamma-ray burst afterglows arise from relativistic collisionless shocks in which the postshock tangled magnetic field $\vec{B}$ is produced by the two-stream and/or Weibel instabilities on plasma skin-depth scales $(c/\omega_p)$. The field…
We describe our attempt to determine if gamma-ray burst (GRB) and afterglow emissions could both arise in external shocks for simple GRBs--bursts consisting of just a few peaks in their lightcurves. We calculate peak flux and peak frequency…
We simulate the emission in the shallow decay phase of gamma-ray burst afterglows using a time-dependent code. We test four models: the energy injection model, evolving the injection efficiency of non-thermal electrons, evolving the…
The radiation from afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) is generated in collisionless plasma shocks. The two main ingredients behind the radiation are high-energy, non-thermal electrons and a strong magnetic field. I argue that in order to…
It is by now fairly well established that gamma-ray burst afterglows result from initially relativistic outflows interacting with the medium surrounding the burster and emitting non-thermal radiation ranging from radio to X-rays. However,…
Recent analytical and numerical work argue that successful relativistic Fermi acceleration requires a weak magnetization of the unshocked plasma, all the more so at high Lorentz factors. The present paper tests this conclusion by computing…
A number of correlations between observables have been found to exist for gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows, linking ejecta energy to prompt and afterglow energy release and linking early stage optical and X-ray luminosity to the end times…
Evidence suggests that the gamma-ray burst (GRB) ejecta is likely magnetized, although the degree of magnetization of the ejecta is unknown. We derive a rigorous analytical solution for the relativistic 90 degree shocks under the ideal MHD…
The exact profile of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow image on the plane of the sky can provide important constraints on the underlying physics. In particular, it can test whether the magnetic field in the emitting shocked external medium…
If gamma ray bursts are highly collimated, radiating into only a small fraction of the sky, the energy requirements of each event may be reduced by several (up to 4 - 6) orders of magnitude, and the event rate increased correspondingly. The…
The energy requirements of gamma ray bursts have in past been poorly constrained because of three major uncertainties: The distances to bursts, the degree of burst beaming, and the efficiency of gamma ray production. The first of these has…
We present numerical simulations of Gamma-Ray Bursts arising from external shocks in the impulsive and wind models, including a weak or a strong coupling between electrons and protons plus magnetic fields, and analyze the burst features in…
We study the ``normal'' decay phase of the X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which follows the shallow decay phase, using the events simultaneously observed in the R-band. The classical external shock model -- in which neither…
Gamma-ray bursts are thought to be the outcome of a cataclysmic event leading to a relativistically expanding fireball, in which particles are accelerated at shocks and produce nonthermal radiation. We discuss the theoretical predictions of…
Forward shocks caused by the interaction between a relativistic blast wave and the circum-burst medium are thought to be responsible for the afterglow emission in Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). We consider the hydrodynamics of a spherical…
GRB afterglow polarization is discussed. We find an observable, up to 10%, polarization, if the magnetic field coherence length grows at about the speed of light after the field is generated at the shock front. Detection of a polarized…
I discuss some theoretical expectations for the synchrotron emission from a relativistic blast-wave interacting with the ambient medium, as a model for GRB afterglows, and compare them with observations. An afterglow flux evolving as a…
We discuss the reference time t_0 of afterglow light curves in the context of the standard internal-external shock model. The decay index of early afterglow is very sensitive to the reference time one chooses. In order to understand the…