Related papers: Rings in Fireball Afterglows

The discovery of GRBs' afterglows has allowed us to establish several facts: their distance and energy scales, the fact that they are due to explosions, that the explosions are relativistic, and that the afterglow emission mechanism is…

The detection of delayed X-ray, optical and radio emission, ``afterglow,'' associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is consistent with models, where the bursts are produced by relativistic expanding blast waves, driven by expanding fireballs…

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…

The energy requirements of gamma ray bursts have in past been poorly constrained because of three major uncertainties: The distances to bursts, the degree of burst beaming, and the efficiency of gamma ray production. The first of these has…

We compute the afterglow of gamma-ray bursts produced by purely electromagnetic outflows to see if it shows characteristic signatures differing from those obtained with the standard internal/external shock model. Using a simple approach for…

If gamma ray bursts are highly collimated, radiating into only a small fraction of the sky, the energy requirements of each event may be reduced by several (up to 4 - 6) orders of magnitude, and the event rate increased correspondingly. The…

Early rebrightenings at a post-burst time of 10^2 - 10^4 s have been observed in the afterglows of some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Unlike X-ray flares, these rebrightenings usually last for a relatively long period. The continuous energy…

We construct a model of a relativistic fireball or light--like shell of matter by considering a spherically symmetric moving gravitating mass experiencing an impulsive deceleration to rest. We take this event to be followed by the mass…

The discovery of X-ray, optical and radio afterglows of GRBs provides an important tool for understanding these sources. Most current models envisage GRB as arising in a cataclysmic stellar event leading to a relativistically expanding…

We investigate analytically the effect of an anisotropic distribution of the kinetic energy within a relativistic fireball on the decay of the afterglow emission, focusing on axially symmetric fireballs with a uniform core and a power-law…

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…

There have been great and rapid progresses in the field of $\gamma$-ray bursts (denoted as GRBs) since BeppoSAX and other telescopes discovered their afterglows in 1997. Here, we will first give a brief review on the observational facts of…

We report on a complete set of early optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) obtained with the ROTSE-III telescope network from March 2005 through June 2007. This set is comprised of 12 afterglows with early optical and Swift/XRT…

The absorption feature detected in the prompt X-ray emission of GRB990705 has important consequences for its circum-burst environment and therefore on its afterglows. Here we investigate whether the circum-burst environment constrained by…

We numerically model the interaction between an expanding fireball and a stationary external medium whose density is either homogeneous or varies with distance as a power-law. The evolution is followed until most of the fireball kinetic…

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…

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…

We report the optical polarization of a gamma ray burst (GRB) afterglow, obtained 203 seconds after the initial burst of gamma rays from GRB 060418, using a ring polarimeter on the robotic Liverpool Telescope. Our robust (2-sigma) upper…

A long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB) has been widely thought to arise from the collapse of a massive star, and it has been suggested that its ambient medium is a homogenous interstellar medium (ISM) or a stellar wind. There are two shocks…

Gamma-ray bursts and their afterglows are thought to be produced by an ultrarelativistic jet. One of the most important open questions is the outflow composition: the energy may be carried out from the central source either as kinetic…