scholarly journals Magnetars and Gamma Ray Bursts

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (S279) ◽  
pp. 289-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolò Bucciantini

AbstractIn the last few years, evidences for a long-lived and sustained engine in Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) have increased the attention to the so called millisecond-magnetar model, as a competitive alternative to the standard collapsar scenario. I will review here the key aspects of the millisecond magnetar model for Long Duration Gamma Ray Bursts (LGRBs). I will briefly describe what constraints present observations put on any engine model, both in terms of energetics, outflow properties, and the relation with the associated Supernova (SN). For each of these I will show how the millisecond magnetar model satisfies the requirements, what are the limits of the model, how can it be further tested, and what observations might be used to discriminate against it. I will also discuss numerical results that show the importance of the confinement by the progenitor star in explaining the formation of a collimated outflow, how a detailed model for the evolution of the central engine can be built, and show that a wide variety of explosive events can be explained by different magnetar parameters. I will conclude with a suggestion that magnetars might be at the origin of the Extended Emission (EE) observed in a significant fraction of Short GRBs.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S290) ◽  
pp. 361-363
Author(s):  
Zhibin Zhang ◽  
Yongfeng Huang ◽  
Hongchao Liu

AbstractBy collecting 17 short gamma-ray bursts with necessary data, we find a correlation of Lp ∝ Ep,i1.7, which is very consistent with that derived from a greatly expanded sample of 148 Swift long gamma-ray bursts. It is argued that the radiation mechanism of both long and short gamma-ray bursts should be similar, i.e., of quasi-thermal origin caused by the photosphere and the dissipation occurring very near the central engine. In addition, we suggest that the Ep,i-Lp relation can be used to identified a burst among normal short bursts, short bursts with extended emission and long bursts with short-hard properties. We also find the ratio of peak energy to fluence in the prompt γ-ray band is a prospective discriminator, similar to the traditional duration time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 492 (3) ◽  
pp. 3622-3630
Author(s):  
Lin Lan ◽  
Rui-Jingi Lu ◽  
Hou-Jun Lü ◽  
Jun Shen ◽  
Jared Rice ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Short gamma-ray bursts (GRB) with extended emission (EE) that are composed of an initial short hard spike followed by a long-lasting EE are thought to comprise a sucategory of short GRBs. The narrow energy band available during the Swift era, combined with a lack of spectral information, prevented the discovery of the intrinsic properties of these events. In this paper, we perform a systematic search of short GRBs with EE using all available Fermi/GBM data. The search identified 26 GBM-detected short GRBs with EE that are similar to GRB 060614 observed by Swift/BAT. We focus on investigating the spectral and temporal properties of both the hard spike and the EE component of all 26 GRBs, and explore differences and possible correlations between them. We find that while the peak energy (Ep) of the hard spikes is slightly harder than that of the EE, their fluences are comparable. The harder Ep seems to correspond to a larger fluence and peak flux, with a large scatter for both the hard spike and the EE component. Moreover, the Ep of both the hard spike and the EE are compared with other short GRBs. Finally, we also compare the properties of GRB 170817A with those of short GRBs with EE and find no significant statistical differences between them. We find that GRB 170817A has the lowest Ep, probably because it is off-axis.


2005 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 459-466
Author(s):  
Alberto J. Castro-Tirado

SummarySince their discovery in 1967 Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been puzzling to astrophysicists. With the advent of a new generation of X–ray satellites in the late 90’s, it was possible to carry out deep multi-wavelength observations of the counterparts associated with the long duration GRBs class just within a few hours of occurrence, thanks to the observation of the fading X-ray emission that follows the more energetic gamma-ray photons once the GRB event has ended. The fact that this emission (the afterglow) extends at longer wavelengths, led to the discovery of optical/IR/radio counterparts in 1997-2003, greatly improving our understanding of these sources. The classical, long duration GRBs, have been observed to originate at cosmological distances in a range of redshifts with 0.1685 ≤ z ≤ 4.50 implying energy releases of ~ 1051 ergs. The recent results on GRB 021004 and GRB 030329 confirm that the central engines that power these extraordinary events are due to be collapse of massive stars rather than the merging of compact objects as previously also suggested. Short GRBs still remain a mystery as no counterparts have been detected so far.


2019 ◽  
Vol 486 (2) ◽  
pp. 2471-2476 ◽  
Author(s):  
B Gendre ◽  
Q T Joyce ◽  
N B Orange ◽  
G Stratta ◽  
J L Atteia ◽  
...  

Abstract Ultra-long gamma-ray bursts are a class of high-energy transients lasting several hours. Their exact nature is still elusive, and several models have been proposed to explain them. Because of the limited coverage of wide-field gamma-ray detectors, the study of their prompt phase with sensitive narrow-field X-ray instruments could help in understanding the origin of ultra-long GRBs. However, the observers face a true problem in rapidly activating follow-up observations, due to the challenging identification of an ultra-long GRB before the end of the prompt phase. We present here a comparison of the prompt properties available after a few tens of minutes of a sample of ultra-long GRBs and normal long GRBs, looking for prior indicators of the long duration. We find that there is no such clear prior indicator of the duration of the burst. We also found that statistically, a burst lasting at least 10 and 20 minutes has respectively $28{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ and $50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ probability to be an ultralong event. These findings point towards a common central engine for normal long and ultra-long GRBs, with the collapsar model privileged.


Science ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 343 (6166) ◽  
pp. 48-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Maselli ◽  
A. Melandri ◽  
L. Nava ◽  
C. G. Mundell ◽  
N. Kawai ◽  
...  

Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are an extremely rare outcome of the collapse of massive stars and are typically found in the distant universe. Because of its intrinsic luminosity (L ∼ 3 × 1053 ergs per second) and its relative proximity (z = 0.34), GRB 130427A reached the highest fluence observed in the γ-ray band. Here, we present a comprehensive multiwavelength view of GRB 130427A with Swift, the 2-meter Liverpool and Faulkes telescopes, and by other ground-based facilities, highlighting the evolution of the burst emission from the prompt to the afterglow phase. The properties of GRB 130427A are similar to those of the most luminous, high-redshift GRBs, suggesting that a common central engine is responsible for producing GRBs in both the contemporary and the early universe and over the full range of GRB isotropic energies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (S331) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Antonio de Ugarte Postigo ◽  
Christina Thöne ◽  
Zach Cano ◽  
David Alexander Kann ◽  
Luca Izzo ◽  
...  

AbstractObserving the supernovae (SNe) associated to the different types of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is one of the few means to study their progenitors. In the past years, it has become clear that GRB-like events are more heterogeneous than previously thought. There is a marked difference between long GRBs, which are produced by the collapse of very massive stars and are normally associated with broad-lined type Ic SNe, and short bursts, which occur when two compact objects merge and that, at least in some cases, can produce an associated kilonova. Moreover, the SNe associated with different sub-types of long GRBs are also seen to differ, especially those associated with ultra-long duration GRBs. To address this issue in a systematic way we started an observing programme in 2010 at the 10.4m GTC telescope. Here we present some results of our programme, including the detection of 12 new GRB-SNe. Highlights of our sample are the discovery of the first spectroscopic SN associated with a highly energetic (Eγ, iso ~ 1054 erg) “cosmological” burst (GRB 130427A), the study of the SN associated with a shock-breakout GRB (GRB 140606B) and the SN associated with the peculiar ultra-long GRB 101225A at z = 0.85. The sample includes also the follow-up of several short GRBs in search for kilonovae emission (GRB 130603B and GRB 160821B are important examples). Amongst our latest results we present the photometric and spectroscopic observations of the SNe associated with GRB 150818A and GRB 161219B.


Galaxies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Takanori Sakamoto ◽  
Yuuki Yoshida ◽  
Motoko Serino

We investigated the spectral properties of the prompt emission for short- and long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) using the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor data. In particular, we focused on comparing the spectral properties of short GRBs and the initial 2 s of long GRBs, motivated by the previous study of Ghirlanda et al. (2009). We confirmed the similarity in the low energy photon index α between short GRBs and the initial 2 s of long GRBs. Since about a quarter of our spectra of both short GRBs and the initial 2 s of long GRBs show α to be shallower than - 2 / 3 , it is difficult to understand in the context standard synchrotron emission.


2020 ◽  
Vol 499 (4) ◽  
pp. 5986-5992
Author(s):  
Nikhil Sarin ◽  
Paul D Lasky ◽  
Gregory Ashton

ABSTRACT The spin-down energy of millisecond magnetars has been invoked to explain X-ray afterglow observations of a significant fraction of short and long gamma-ray bursts. Here, we extend models previously introduced in the literature, incorporating radiative losses with the spin-down of a magnetar central engine through an arbitrary braking index. Combining this with a model for the tail of the prompt emission, we show that our model can better explain the data than millisecond-magnetar models without radiative losses or those that invoke spin-down solely through vacuum dipole radiation. We find that our model predicts a subset of X-ray flares seen in some gamma-ray bursts. We can further explain the diversity of X-ray plateaus by altering the radiative efficiency and measure the braking index of newly born millisecond magnetars. We measure the braking index of GRB061121 as $n=4.85^{+0.11}_{-0.15}$ suggesting the millisecond-magnetar born in this gamma-ray burst spins down predominantly through gravitational-wave emission.


2017 ◽  
Vol 607 ◽  
pp. A121 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. G. Bernardini ◽  
G. Ghirlanda ◽  
S. Campana ◽  
P. D’Avanzo ◽  
J.-L. Atteia ◽  
...  

The delay in arrival times between high and low energy photons from cosmic sources can be used to test the violation of the Lorentz invariance (LIV), predicted by some quantum gravity theories, and to constrain its characteristic energy scale EQG that is of the order of the Planck energy. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and blazars are ideal for this purpose thanks to their broad spectral energy distribution and cosmological distances: at first order approximation, the constraints on EQG are proportional to the photon energy separation and the distance of the source. However, the LIV tiny contribution to the total time delay can be dominated by intrinsic delays related to the physics of the sources: long GRBs typically show a delay between high and low energy photons related to their spectral evolution (spectral lag). Short GRBs have null intrinsic spectral lags and are therefore an ideal tool to measure any LIV effect. We considered a sample of 15 short GRBs with known redshift observed by Swift and we estimate a limit on EQG ≳ 1.5 × 1016 GeV. Our estimate represents an improvement with respect to the limit obtained with a larger (double) sample of long GRBs and is more robust than the estimates on single events because it accounts for the intrinsic delay in a statistical sense.


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