Related papers: Quasi-Thermal Comptonization and GRBs
Quasi-thermal Comptonization in internal shocks formed between relativistic shells can account for the high energy emission of gamma-ray bursts. This is in fact the dominant cooling mechanism if the typical energy of the emitting particles…
Recent results of the hectic research activity about gamma-ray bursts will be reviewed, with emphasis about the emission processes at the origin of the observed gamma-rays. The conventional synchrotron shock scenario is found to have…
The emission mechanism of the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is still a matter of debates. The standard synchrotron energy spectrum of cooling electrons F_E ~ E^{-1/2} is much too soft to account for the majority of the observed spectral slopes.…
A leading mechanism for producing cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is via ultra-relativistic particles in an expanding fireball. The kinetic energy of the particles is converted into thermal energy in a forward shock and a reverse…
We discuss the new surprising observational results that indicate quite convincingly that the prompt emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) is due to synchrotron radiation produced by a particle distribution that has a low energy cut-off. The…
A small fraction of GRBs with available data down to soft X-rays ($\sim0.5$ keV) have been shown to feature a spectral break in the low-energy part ($\sim1-10$ keV) of their prompt emission spectrum. The overall spectral shape is consistent…
To date, nearly all multi-wavelength modeling of long-duration gamma-ray bursts has ignored synchrotron radiation from the significant population of electrons expected to pass the shock without acceleration into a power-law distribution. We…
We propose a model for the spectral formation of Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) prompt emission, where the phenomenological Band's function is usually applied to describe the GRB prompt emission. We suggest that the GRB prompt emission is mainly a…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmic events occurring at large distances beyond our galaxy. They provide a unique opportunity to study electromagnetic patterns not seen elsewhere. When the collimated GRB outflow interacts with the outer…
A major breakthrough in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) prompt emission physics occurred in the last few years, with the realization that a thermal component accompanies the over-all non-thermal prompt spectra. This thermal part…
There is strong observational evidence that a quasi-thermal population of electrons (or pairs) exists in compact X-ray sources. It is, however, unclear what mechanism thermalizes the particles. Here, two processes, Coulomb scattering and…
The role of Compton cooling in the standard model for the afterglows of gamma-ray bursts is considered. When electrons cool by scattering off their own synchrotron photons, three cooling regimes are identified in which the observed…
Synchrotron radiation of relativistic electrons is an important radiation mechanism in many astrophysical sources. In the sources where the synchrotron cooling time scale $t_c$ is shorter than the dynamical time scale $t_{dyn}$, electrons…
The energy spectra of pulses of GRBs are modeled for synchrotron and multiple self-inverse Compton scatterings from a population of thermal and non-thermal $e^-$s. The contribution from pairs that result from annihilation is also taken into…
We discuss here constraints on the particle acceleration models from the observed gamma-ray bursts spectra. The standard synchrotron shock model assumes that some fraction of available energy is given instantaneously to the electrons which…
Previous studies have considered synchrotron as the emission mechanism for prompt Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). These works have shown that the electrons must cool on a timescale comparable to the dynamic time at the source in order to satisfy…
The high energy continuum in Seyfert galaxies and galactic black hole candidates is likely to be produced by a thermal plasma. There are difficulties in understanding what can keep the plasma thermal, especially during fast variations of…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) prompt emission is commonly attributed to non-thermal radiation processes operating in the optically thin regions of a relativistic outflow. Among these, optically thin inverse-Compton (IC) scattering remains an…
Synchrotron radiation and Compton scattering are widely accepted as the most likely emission mechanisms of some astrophysical phenomena, such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The measurement on polarization of…
We investigate thermal synchrotron radiation at semi-relativistic and relativistic temperatures. We find an analytic expression for the angle-averaged emission coefficient, and show that it is significantly more accurate that those derived…