Related papers: Gamma-Ray Bursts
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope with its main instrument onboard, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), opened a new era in high-energy astrophysics and in particular for the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), which are short flashes of -rays…
Despite their different nature and physics, blazars and gamma-ray bursts have in common very powerful relativistic jets, which make them the most luminous sources in the Universe. The energy extraction from the central compact object, the…
The extragalactic gamma-ray sky is dominated by two classes of sources: Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) and radio loud active galactic nuclei whose jets are pointing at us (blazars). We believe that the radiation we receive from them originates…
More than fifty years have been elapsed from the first discovery of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) with the American Vela satellites, and more than twenty-five years from the discovery with the BeppoSAX satellite of the first X-ray afterglow of a…
The optical light that is generated simultaneously with the x-rays and gamma-rays during a gamma-ray burst (GRB) provides clues about the nature of the explosions that occur as massive stars collapse to form black holes. We report on the…
The origin of cosmic gamma-ray bursts remains one of the most intriguing puzzles in astronomy. We suggest that purely general relativistic effects in the collapse of massive stars could account for these bursts. The late formation of closed…
It is now more than 40 years since the discovery of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and in the last two decades there has been major progress in the observations of bursts, the afterglows and their host galaxies. This recent progress has been…
Gamma-ray bursts are most luminous explosions in the universe. Their ejecta are believed to move towards Earth with a relativistic speed. The interaction between this "relativistic jet" and a circum burst medium drives a pair of (forward…
In this paper we review the story of the BeppoSAX discovery of the Gamma Ray Burst afterglow and their cosmological distance, starting from their first detection with Vela satellites and from the efforts done before BeppoSAX. We also…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are short and intense flashes at the cosmological distances, which are the most luminous explosions in the Universe. The high luminosities of GRBs make them detectable out to the edge of the visible universe. So,…
Data from the Swift satellite has enabled us for the first time to provide a complete picture of the gamma-ray burst emission mechanism and its relationship with the early afterglow emissions. We show that gamma-ray photons for two bursts,…
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,…
Cosmological gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest explosions in the Universe. Satellite detectors, such as Beppo-SAX, HETE2 and more recently Swift, have provided a wealth of data, including the localization and redshifts of subsets of…
Present knowledge indicates that gamma-ray bursts are linked with massive stars. They will become invaluable probes of the early universe and galaxy formation. In the future, it will be possible to use gamma-ray bursts for two purposes: 1)…
The Swift mission, scheduled for launch in early 2004, is a multiwavelength observatory for gamma-ray burst (GRB) astronomy. It is the first-of-its-kind autonomous rapid-slewing satellite for transient astronomy and pioneers the way for…
The advent of large panoramic photometric surveys of the sky offers the possibly of exploring the association of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with supernovae. To date, a few gamma-ray bursts have been connected possibly with supernovae: GRB…
High-energy photons are a powerful probe for astrophysics and for fundamental physics in extreme conditions. During the recent years, our knowledge of the most violent phenomena in the Universe has impressively progressed thanks to the…
The long lived afterglow emission that follows gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) was predicted prior to its detection in 1997, in the X-rays, optical and radio. It is thought to arise from the shock that is driven into the external medium as the…
The little we do know of the physical conditions in gamma-ray bursters makes them conducive to the acceleration of high-energy cosmic rays, especially if they are at cosmological distances. We find that, with the observed statistics and…
The last half-century has seen dramatic developments in gamma-ray telescopes, from their initial conception and development through to their blossoming into full maturity as a potent research tool in astronomy. Gamma-ray telescopes are…