Related papers: The Distribution of Burst Energy and Shock Paramet…
We determine the distribution of total energy emitted by gamma-ray bursts for bursts with fluences and distance information. Our core sample consists of eight bursts with BATSE spectra and spectroscopic redshifts. We extend this sample by…
Gamma-ray bursts are believed to be some catastrophic event in which material is ejected at a relativistic velocity, and internal collisions within this ejecta produce the observed $\gamma$-ray flash. The angular size of a causally…
We show that gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow observations strongly suggest, within the fireball model framework, that radiating electrons are shock accelerated to a power-law energy distribution, with universal index p \approx 2.2, and that…
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…
We present single-epoch radio afterglow observations of 24 long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB) on a timescale of >100 d after the burst. These observations trace the afterglow evolution when the blastwave has decelerated to mildly- or…
Temporal behaviour of GRB afterglow light curve is derived for the case where the electron energy distribution is relatively flat, with the power-law index p lying between 1.0 and 2.0. It is shown that the expected behaviour will be the…
The electron energy distribution index, p, is a fundamental parameter of the synchrotron emission from a range of astronomical sources. Here we examine one such source of synchrotron emission, Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows observed by the…
Observations of individual bursts chosen by the vagaries of telescope availability demonstrated that bursts are not standard candles and that their apparent energy can be as great as 10^54 erg. However, determining the distribution of their…
We constrain blastwave parameters and the circumburst media of a subsample of ten BeppoSAX Gamma-Ray Bursts. For this sample we derive the values of the injected electron energy distribution index, p, and the density structure index of the…
Diffusive shock acceleration theory suggests that the ``universal'' energy spectrum of electrons with a power-law index p approximately equal to 2.3, commonly used to model GRB afterglows, cannot extend below an electron lorentz factor…
The distribution of the apparent total energy emitted by a gamma-ray burst reflects not only the distribution of the energy actually released by the burst engine, but also the distribution of beaming angles. Using the observed energy…
We describe our attempt to determine if gamma-ray burst (GRB) and afterglow emissions could both arise in external shocks for simple GRBs--bursts consisting of just a few peaks in their lightcurves. We calculate peak flux and peak frequency…
In models for gamma ray burst afterglows, it is normally assumed that the external shock strongly amplifies the magnetic field and that this field maintains a steady value throughout the shocked region. We discuss the effects of modifying…
Particle-in-cell simulations have unveiled that shock-accelerated electrons do not follow a pure power-law distribution, but have an additional low-energy "thermal" part, which owns a considerable portion of the total energy of electrons.…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow emission is believed to be produced by synchrotron emission of electrons accelerated to high energy by a relativistic collisionless shock propagating into a weakly magnetized plasma. Afterglow observations…
In gamma-ray burst research it is quite common to fit the afterglow light curves with a broken power law to interpret the data. We apply this method to a computer simulated population of afterglows and find systematic differences between…
Explosions of massive stars are believed to be the source of a significant fraction of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). If this is indeed the case, then the explosion blast wave propagates into a complex density structure, composed of a stellar…
The afterglow emission that follows gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) contains valuable information about the circumburst medium and, therefore, about the GRB progenitor. Theoretical studies of GRB blast waves, however, are often limited to simple…
In a recent paper we have calculated the power density spectrum of Gamma-Ray Bursts arising from multiple shocks in a relativistic wind. The wind optical thickness is one of the factors to which the power spectrum is most sensitive,…
Recent particle-in-cell simulations suggest that a large fraction of the energy dissipated in a relativistic shock is deposited into a Maxwellian distribution of electrons that is connected to the high-energy power-law tail. Here, we…