Related papers: X-ray Lines in Gamma-ray Bursts and Cerenkov Line …
The recent discoveries of X-ray lines in the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) provide significant clues to the nature of GRB progenitors and central environments. However, the iron line interpretation by fluorescence or recombination…
X-ray emission features have been detected in at least five GRB afterglows. Their detection and properties are of great importance in our understanding of the nature of the GRB progenitor. Moreover, they provide us with an un-collimated…
Observational evidence of iron absorption and emission lines in X-ray spectra of Gamma-Ray Bursts is quite compelling. I will briefly review the results, summarize different models and describe the connection with massive progenitors in…
X-ray lines have been recently detected in the afterglows of a few gamma-ray bursts. We derive constraints on the physical conditions in the line-emitting gas, using as an example the multiple K$_\alpha$ lines detected by Reeves et al.…
The discovery of a powerful and transient iron line feature in the X-ray afterglow spectra of gamma-ray bursts would be a major breakthrough for understanding the nature of their progenitors, strongly suggesting the presence of a large,…
The afterglow emission has become the main stream of Gamma-Ray burst research since its discovery three years ago. With the distance-scale enigma solved, the study of the late-time GRB emission is now the most promising approach to disclose…
The discovery of a powerful and transient iron line feature in the X-ray afterglow spectrum of GRB 970508 and GRB 970828, if confirmed, would be a major breakthrough for understanding the nature the progenitor of gamma-ray bursts. We show…
The discovery of a powerful and transient iron line feature in the X-ray afterglow spectra of gamma-ray bursts would be a major breakthrough for understanding the nature of their progenitors. Piro et al. (1999) and Yoshida et al. (1999)…
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…
We present the results of a spectroscopic search for narrow emission and absorption features in the X-ray spectra of long gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Using XMM-Newton data, both EPIC and RGS spectra, of six bright (fluence >10^{-7}…
Recently, X-ray emission lines have been observed in X-ray afterglows of several $\gamma$-ray bursts. It is a major breakthrough for understanding the nature of the progenitors. It is proposed that the X-ray emission lines can be well…
The emission features observed in the X-ray afterglow of Gamma Ray Bursts are extremely powerful. Since they last at least for several hours, they imply energies of the order of 1e49 ergs. This in turn implies that the energy contained in…
Recent observations of several gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows have shown evidence for a large amount of X-ray line emitting material, possibly arising from ionized iron. A significant detection of an X-ray spectral feature, such as that…
Recently iron emission features have been observed in several X-ray afterglows of GRBs. It is found that the energy obtained from the illuminating continuum which produces the emission lines is much higher than that of the main burst.The…
The recent report of iron line features in the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 991216 has important implications for the properties of the radiating material and hence the nature of the immediate burst environment. We argue that the…
Analysis of observations with XMM-Newton have made a significant contribution to the study of Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) X-ray afterglows. The effective area, bandpass and resolution of the EPIC instrument permit the study of a wide variety of…
Iron spectral features are thought to be the best tracer of a progenitor of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The detections of spectral features such as an iron line and/or a Radiative Recombination edge and Continuum (RRC) were reported in four…
In the hypernova/collapsar model of gamma-ray bursts, it is natural that radiation is emitted by the inner engine for some time after the burst. This has been discussed as a possible source of the X-ray line emission observed in some…
The recent report of X-ray Fe features in the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 991216 may provide important clues for identifying the nature of its progenitor and constraining the burst mechanism. We argue that the strong line emission…
We consider models for the generation of the emission line recently discovered in the X-ray afterglow spectrum of several bursts, and especially of GRB 991216 observed by Chandra. These observations suggest the presence of 0.1-1 solar…