Related papers: The polarization and beaming effect for GRBs
In a recent paper, Rol and colleagues present evidence for a variable polarization in the optical afterglow following the gamma-ray burst GRB 990712. The variation is highly significant, but the position angle appears time independent.…
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…
It is now more than 40 years since the discovery of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and in the last two decades there has been major progress in the observations of bursts, the afterglows and their host galaxies. This recent progress has been…
We here discuss a new model of $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) based on differentially rotating strange stars. Strange stars in this model and differentially rotating neutron stars in the Klu\'zniak-Ruderman model can produce extremely…
Linear polarization at the level of $\sim 1-3%$ has by now been measured in several gamma-ray burst afterglows. Whereas the degree of polarization, $P$, was found to vary in some sources, the position angle, $\theta_p$, was roughly constant…
Polarization measurements for the optical counterpart to GRB 020405 are presented and discussed. Our observations were performed with the VLT-UT3 (Melipal) during the second and third night after the gamma-ray burst discovery. The…
GRBs are expected to occur at redshifts far higher than the highest quasar redshifts so far detected. And unlike quasars, GRB afterglows may provide "clean" probes of the epoch of reionization because no complications (such as the presence…
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…
We investigate consequences of a continuously energy-injecting central engine of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow emission, assuming that a highly magnetized pulsar is left beaming in the core of a GRB progenitor. Beaming and continuous…
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…
We summarize basic observational properties of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), including prompt emission properties, afterglow properties, and classification schemes. We also briefly comment on the current physical understanding of these…
It is suggested that many $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) are cloaked by an ultra-relativistic baryonic shell that has high optical depth when the photons are manufactured. Such a shell would not fully block photons reflected or emitted from its…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are brief flashes of gamma rays, considered to be the most energetic explosive phenomena in the Universe. The emission from GRBs comprises a short (typically tens of seconds) and bright prompt emission, followed by a…
The discovery by BeppoSAX and coordinated ground-based observations of persistent X-ray, visible and radio counterparts to GRB has successfully concluded a search begin in 1973. The problem of explaining the mechanisms of GRB and their…
In the external shock model, gamma-ray burst (GRB) emissions are produced by the energization and deceleration of a thin relativistic blast wave due to its interactions with the circumburst medium (CBM). We study the physical properties of…
Considering the contribution of the emission from the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to the radio afterglows, we investigate the effect of host galaxies on observations statistically. For the three types of events, e.g.…
The recently detected linear polarization in the optical lightcurve of GRB 990510 renewed the interest on how polarization can be produced in gamma-ray burst fireballs. Here we present a model based on the assumption that we are seeing a…
X-ray flashes (XRFs) and X-ray rich gamma-ray bursts (XRGRBs) share many observational characteristics with long duration GRBs, but the reason for which their prompt emission peaks at lower photon energies, $E_p$, is still under debate.…
Short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) are widely believed to result from the mergers of compact binaries. This model predicts an afterglow that bears the characteristic signatures of a constant, low density medium, including a smooth…
A systematical study on the early X-ray afterglows of both optically bright and dark gamma-ray bursts (B-GRBs and D-GRBs) observed by Swift has been presented. Our sample includes 25 GRBs. Among them 13 are B-GRBs and 12 are D-GRBs. Our…