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The dissipation mechanism that powers gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remains uncertain almost half a century after their discovery. The two main competing mechanisms are the extensively studied internal shocks and the less studied magnetic…
The deviation from the power-law decline of the optical flux observed in GRB 970228 and GRB 980326 has been used recently to argue in favor of the connection between GRBs and supernovae. We consider an alternative explanation for this…
Strong optical and radio flares often appear in the afterglow phase of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). It has been proposed that colliding ultra-relativistic shells can produce these flares. Such consecutive shells can be formed due to the…
The X-ray light curves of the early afterglow phase from gamma-ray bursts present a puzzling variability, including flares. The origin of these flares is still debated, and often associated with a late activity of the central engine. We…
We discuss the new surprising observational results that indicate quite convincingly that the prompt emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) is due to synchrotron radiation produced by a particle distribution that has a low energy cut-off. The…
Recent three dimensional, high-resolution simulations of neutron star coalescences are analysed to assess whether short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) could originate from such encounters. The two most popular modes of energy extraction -- namely…
Whether a short gamma-ray burst (GRB) is caused by a black hole (BH) or a neutron star (NS) after the merger of a NS binary is a crucial problem. We propose a BH model that explains short GRBs with long-lasting activities such as extended…
The emission mechanism of the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is still a matter of debates. The standard synchrotron energy spectrum of cooling electrons F_E ~ E^{-1/2} is much too soft to account for the majority of the observed spectral slopes.…
Understanding the origin and diversity of emission processes responsible for Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) remains a pressing challenge. While prompt and contemporaneous panchromatic observations have the potential to test predictions of the…
There are observational facts and theoretical arguments for an origin of gamma-ray bursts in molecular clouds in distant galaxies. If this is true, one could detect a significant flux of GRB prompt and early afterglow X-ray radiation…
Long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) release copious amounts of energy across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and so provide a window into the process of black hole formation from the collapse of a massive star. Over the last forty…
The shock model has successfully explained the observed behaviors of afterglows from long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here we use it to investigate the so-called early afterglows from short GRBs, which arises from blast waves that are not…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are extra-galactic and extremely energetic transient emissions of gamma rays, which are thought to be associated with the death of massive stars or the merger of compact objects in binary systems. Their huge…
Beamed gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources produce a bow shock in their gaseous environment. The emitted flux from this bow shock may dominate over the direct emission from the jet for lines of sight which are outside the angular radius of the…
Jet breaks in gamma ray burst (GRB) afterglows provide a direct probe of their collimation angle. Modeling a jet break requires an understanding of the "jet spreading" process, whereby the jet transitions from a collimated outflow into the…
The progenitor stars of long Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are thought to be Wolf-Rayet stars, which generate a massive and energetic wind. Nevertheless, about 25 percent of all GRB afterglows light curves indicate a constant density medium close…
Assuming an adiabatic evolution of a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) remnant interacting with an external medium, we calculate the injection, cooling, and absorption break frequencies, and the afterglow flux for plausible orderings of the break and…
Wind-interaction models for gamma-ray burst afterglows predict that the optical emission from the reverse shock drops below that from the forward shock within 100s of seconds of the burst. The typical frequency $\nu_m$ of the synchrotron…
We show that the excellent optical and gamma-ray data available for GRB 080319B rule out the internal shock model for the prompt emission. The data instead point to a model in which the observed radiation was produced close to the…
Jets in long-duration $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) have to drill through the collapsing star in order to break out of it and produce the $\gamma$-ray signal while the central engine is still active. If the breakout time is shorter for more…