Related papers: Do Gamma-Ray Bursts Come from the Oort Cloud?
The BATSE experiment has now observed more than 1100 gamma-ray bursts. The observed angular distribution is isotropic, while the brightness distribution of bursts shows a reduced number of faint events. These observations favor a…
The Oort cloud, a collection of icy bodies orbiting the sun at roughly $10^{3}$ AU to $10^{5}$ AU, is believed to be the source of the long-period comets observed in the inner solar system. Although its existence was predicted nearly 70…
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…
The origin of dark bursts - i.e. that have no observed afterglows in X-ray, optical/NIR and radio ranges - is unclear yet. Different possibilities - instrumental biases, very high redshifts, extinction in the host galaxies - are discussed…
Gamma-ray burst sources are distributed with a high level of isotropy, which is compatible with either a cosmological origin or an extended Galactic halo origin. The brightness distribution is another indicator used to characterize the…
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…
$\gamma$-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 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…
In almost any scenario for 'cosmological' gamma-ray bursts (and in many models where they originate in our own Galaxy), the initial energy density is so large that the resulting relativistic plasma expands with $v\sim c$ producing a blast…
It is believed that the observed diffuse gamma ray emission from the galactic plane is the result of interactions between cosmic rays and the interstellar gas. Such emission can be amplified if cosmic rays penetrate into dense molecular…
We calculate the synchrotron self-Compton emission from internal shocks occurring in relativistic winds as a source of gamma-ray bursts, with allowance for self-absorption. For plausible model parameters most pulses within a Gamma-Ray Burst…
The demonstration of repeated gamma-ray bursts from an individual source would severely constrain burst source models. Recent reports (Quashnock and Lamb 1993; Wang and Lingenfelter 1993) of evidence for repetition in the first BATSE burst…
The gamma ray burst phenomenon is reviewed from a theoretical point of view, with emphasis on the fireball shock scenario of the prompt emission and the longer wavelenght afterglow. Recent progress and issues are discussed, including…
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…
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…
If a substantial fraction of the observed gamma-ray bursts originates within an extended Galactic halo then their spatial distribution should deviate slightly from spherical symmetry in a very particular way which involves features both in…
Gamma ray burst sources are isotropically distributed. They could be located at distances $\sim 1000$ AU. (Katz \cite{JK92}) GRB signals have many narrow peaks that are unresolved at the millisecond time resolution of existing observations.…
It has been suggested that cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can produce the observed flux of cosmic rays at the highest energies. However, recent studies of GRBs indicate that their redshift distribution likely follows that of the…
The arguments suggesting an association between the sources of cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) are presented. Recent GRB and UHECR observations are shown to strengthen these…
We calculate the gamma-ray albedo due to cosmic-ray interactions with debris (small rocks, dust, and grains) in the Oort Cloud. We show that under reasonable assumptions a significant proportion of what is called the "extragalactic…