Related papers: A Burst of Speculation
A subset of the unidentified EGRET gamma-ray sources with no active galactic nucleus or other conspicuous counterpart appears to be concentrated at medium latitudes. Their long-term variability and their spatial distribution indicate that…
We construct models for gamma-ray bursts where the emission comes from internal shocks in a relativistic wind with a highly non uniform distribution of the Lorentz factor. We follow the evolution of the wind using a very simplified approach…
The formation of supermassive black holes through the gravitational collapse of supermassive objects ($M \ga 10^4 M_\odot$) has been proposed as a source of cosmological gamma-ray bursts. The major advantage of this model is that such…
We examine and develop the model of gamma ray bursts origin proposed by Shaviv and Dar (astro-ph/9606032), according to which the strong gamma ray emission is produced by the interaction of the baryonic relativistic jet (outflow) with the…
Gamma Ray Bursts as recent GRB990123 and GRB990510 are observed to occur in cosmic volumes with a corresponding output reaching, for isotropic explosions, energies as large as two solar masses annihilation. These energies are underestimated…
Fast radio bursts are mysterious transient sources likely located at cosmological distances. The derived brightness temperatures exceed by many orders of magnitude the self-absorption limit of incoherent synchrotron radiation, implying the…
There is growing evidence that some variable high-energy gamma-ray sources are associated with pulsar wind nebulae. We review the current status of X-ray and radio studies of the sources most likely to be significant emitters above 100 MeV.…
We have calculated gamma-ray radiative transport in regions of high energy density, such as gamma-ray burst source regions, using a discrete ordinate, discrete energy group method. The calculations include two-photon pair production and…
We discuss several constraints on the properties of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) at cosmological distances. First we use the requirement that burst sources must be optically thin to pair production by photon-photon collisions in order to produce…
Locating the gamma-ray emission sites in blazar jets is a long-standing and highly controversial issue. We investigate jointly several constraints on the distance scale r and Lorentz factor Gamma of the gamma-ray emitting regions in…
We reconsider the possibility that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the sources of the ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) within the internal shock model, assuming a pure proton composition of the UHECRs. For the first time, we combine the…
The universe is filled with a diffuse and isotropic extragalactic background of gamma-ray radiation, containing roughly equal energy flux per decade in photon energy between 3 MeV-100 GeV. The origin of this background is one of the…
EGRET data on the Gamma ray emission from the inner Galaxy have shown a rather flat spectrum, extending to about 50 GeV. It is usually assumed that these gamma-rays arise from the interactions of cosmic ray nuclei with ambient matter.…
We discuss the possibility that the sources for gamma ray bursts are hot neutron stars at cosmological distance scales. The temperature of such stars would be $T \sim 1 \MeV$. Such hot stars can produce an electromagnetic blast wave…
When gamma-rays emerge from a central source they may undergo Compton scattering in surrounding matter. The resulting Compton-scattered electrons radiate. Coherent radiation by such Compton electrons follows nuclear explosions above the…
We propose that gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are produced by a shower of heavy blobs running into circumstellar material at highly relativistic speeds. The gamma ray emission is produced in the shocks these bullets drive into the surrounding…
$\gamma$-ray bursts have baffled theorists ever since their accidental discovery at the sixties. We suggest that these bursts originate in merger of neutron star binaries, taking place at cosmological distances. These mergers release…
We consider models for gamma-ray bursts in which a collimated jet expands either into a homogeneous medium or into a stellar wind environment, and calculate the expected afterglow temporal behavior. We show that (i) following a break and a…
We place empirical constraints on the physical properties of $\gamma-$ray burst events at cosmological distances. In particular we derive probability distributions for the radiation energy $E_\gamma$, the minimum Lorentz factor $\gamma_{\rm…
A pedagogical derivation is presented of the ``fireball'' model of gamma-ray bursts, according to which the observable effects are due to the dissipation of the kinetic energy of a relativistically expanding wind, a ``fireball.'' The main…