Related papers: Energetics and Luminosity Function of Gamma-ray Bu…
When a massive star explodes as a Gamma Ray Burst information about this explosion is retained in the properties of the prompt and afterglow emission. We report on new relationships between the prompt and X-ray afterglow emission of…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic explosions in the universe, and their afterglow emission provides an opportunity to probe the physics of relativistic shock waves in an extreme environment. Several key pieces for completing…
The discovery by Swift that a good fraction of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) have a slowly decaying X-ray afterglow phase led to the suggestion that energy injection into the blast wave takes place several hundred seconds after the burst. This…
The distance scale to gamma ray bursts has been a subject of scientific debate for almost thirty years. Up to the discovery of afterglows only indirect methods could be used to constrain the distance scale to this objects. I review some of…
Very early observations with the Swift satellite of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows reveal that the optical component is not detected in a large number of cases. This is in contrast to the bright optical flashes previously discovered in…
Whether gamma-ray bursts are highly beamed or not is a very difficult but important problem that we are confronted with. Some theorists suggest that beaming effect usually leads to a sharp break in the afterglow light curve during the…
The taxonomy of optical emission detected during the critical first few minutes after the onset of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) defines two broad classes: prompt optical emission correlated with prompt gamma-ray emission, and early optical…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous explosions in the universe, yet the nature and physical properties of their energy sources are far from understood. Very important clues, however, can be inferred by studying the afterglows of…
We discuss some open problems concerning the origin and the emission mechanism of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in light of recent developments. If GRBs originate at extragalactic distances, we are facing four crises: (1) an energy crisis, models…
One of the most important discoveries in the observation of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is that the total energy emitted by a GRB in gamma-rays has a very narrow distribution around 10^51 erg, which has led people to claim that GRBs are…
The successful discovery of X-ray, optical and radio afterglows of GRB has made possible the identification of host galaxies at cosmological distances. The energy release inferred in these outbursts place them among the most energetic and…
Recent observations of the environments of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) favour massive stars as their progenitors, which are likely to be surrounded by gas and dust. The visibility of the optical and UV emission of a GRB are expected to depend…
Since their identification with cosmological distances, Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been recognised as the most energetic phenomena in the Universe, with an isotropic burst energy as high as 10^54 ergs. However, the progenitors responsible…
Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of high-energy radiation lasting from a fraction of a second to several hours. Military satellites made the first detections of GRBs in the late 1960s. The $\gamma$-ray emission forms from shocks in a…
The standard model of Gamma-Ray Bursts afterglows is based on synchrotron radiation from a blast wave produced when the relativistic ejecta encounters the surrounding medium. We reanalyze the refreshed shock scenario, in which slower…
[Abridged] Very recently, relations between the peak energy of Gamma-Ray Burst burst spectra, the isotropic-equivalent energy of the burst, and the radiated energy of the burst have been found. In a way that is exactly analogous to the way…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most electromagnetically luminous cosmic explosions. They are powered by collimated streams of plasma (jets) ejected by a newborn stellar-mass black hole or neutron star at relativistic velocities (near the…
The deviation from the power-law decline of the optical flux observed in GRB 970228 and GRB 980326 has been used recently to argue in favor of the connection between GRBs and supernovae. We consider an alternative explanation for this…
The prompt emission of low-luminosity gamma-ray bursts (llGRBs) indicates that these events originate from a relativistic shock breakout. In this case we can estimate, based on the properties of the prompt emission, the energy distribution…
If gamma ray bursts are highly collimated, the energy requirements of each event may be reduced by several (~ 4-6) orders of magnitude, and the event rate increased correspondingly. Extreme conditions in gamma ray bursters lead to highly…