Related papers: Fireballs and Gamma-Ray Bursts
The successful discovery of X-ray, optical and radio afterglows of gamma-ray bursts has significantly helped our understanding of these sources, and made possible the identification of host galaxies at cosmological distances. The energy…
Major advances have been made in the field of gamma-ray bursts in the last two years. The successful discovery of X-ray, optical and radio afterglows, which were predicted by theory, has made possible the identification of host galaxies at…
Gamma ray bursts are among the most energetic events in the known universe. A highly relativistic fireball is ejected. In most cases the burst itself is followed by an afterglow, emitted under deceleration as the fireball plunges through…
It is proposed that the baryons in gamma ray burst (GRB) fireballs originate as "pick-up" neutrons that leak in sideways from surrounding baryonic matter and convert to protons in a collision avalanche. The asymptotic Lorentz factor is…
Models of gamma ray bursts are reviewed in the light of recent observations of afterglows which point towards a cosmological origin. The physics of fireball shock models is discussed, with attention to the type of light histories and…
We calculate both analytically and numerically the evolution of a highly relativistic fireball through the stages of free expansion and coasting, and determine the dependence of the thermodynamic and radiation variables in the comoving and…
We discuss the evolution of cosmological gamma-ray burst remnants, consisting of the cooling and expanding fireball ejecta together with any swept-up external matter, after the gamma-ray event. We show that significant optical emission is…
Millisecond pulsars with strong magnetic fields may be formed through several processes, e.g. accretion-induced collapse of magnetized white dwarfs, merger of two neutron stars. During the birth of such a pulsar, an initial fireball…
We calculate the spectrum resulting from the interaction of a fireball with ambient soft photons. These photons are assumed to be produced by the walls of a funnel in a massive star. By parameterizing the radial dependence of the funnel…
Observations suggest that $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) are produced by the dissipation of the kinetic energy of a relativistic fireball. We show that a large fraction, $\ge 10%$, of the fireball energy is expected to be converted by…
The spectral properties of a composite thermal emission arising from a relativistic expanding fireball can be remarkably different from the Planck function. We perform a detailed study of such a system to explore the features of the prompt…
Fireballs are an essential part of any cosmological $\gamma$-ray burst. We drive here a stability criterion for fireballs and show that fireballs are Rayleigh-Taylor unstable in any region in which the entropy decreases outward. The…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) appear as the brightest transient phenomena in the Universe. The nature of the central engine in GRBs is a missing link in the theory of fireballs to their stellar mass progenitors. Here it is shown that rotating…
The optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts can be used to probe the physics, geometry, and environments of gamma-ray bursts. In this article I discuss the how spectra and photometry can be used to constrain fireball parameters, describe…
The recent years witnessed a dramatic improvement in our knowledge of the phenomenology and physics of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). However, our "pillars of knowledge" remain a few, while many aspects remain obscure and not understood. There is…
The expansion dynamics of hot electron-positron-photon plasma droplets is dealt with within relativistic hydrodynamics. Such droplets, envisaged to be created in future experiments by irradiating thin foils with counter-propagating…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the brightest objects observed. They are also the most relativistic objects known so far. GRBs occur when an ultrarelativisitic ejecta is slowed down by internal shocks within the flow. Relativistic particles…
We examine analytically and numerically the evolution of a relativistic fireball. We show that, after an early rearrangement phase, most of the matter and energy in the fireball is concentrated within a narrow shell. The shell propagates at…
The cosmological gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon is reviewed. The broad observational facts and empirical phenomenological relations of the GRB prompt emission and afterglow are outlined. A well-tested, successful fireball shock model is…
Understanding of the nature of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is one of the challenging problem facing the astrophysics community. The field of gamma ray bursts is a rapidly developing one and we expect that new missions, like SWIFT and GLAST will…