Polarization of the prompt γ-ray emission from the γ-ray burst of 6 December 2002

By W. Coburn, S. Boggs. Nature, 2003

317 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Observations of the afterglows of γ-ray bursts (GRBs) have revealed that they lie at cosmological distances, and so correspond to the release of an enormous amount of energy. The nature of the central engine that powers these events and the prompt γ-ray emission mechanism itself remain enigmatic because, once a relativistic fireball is created, the physics of the afterglow is insensitive to the nature of the progenitor. Here we report the discovery of linear polarization in the prompt γ-ray emission from GRB021206, which indicates that it is synchrotron emission from relativistic electrons in a strong magnetic field. The polarization is at the theoretical maximum, which requires a uniform, large-scale magnetic field over the γ-ray emission region. A large-scale magnetic field constrains possible progenitors to those either having or producing organized fields. We suggest that the large magnetic energy densities in the progenitor environment (comparable to the kinetic energy densities of the fireball), combined with the large-scale structure of the field, indicate that magnetic fields drive the GRB explosion.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6ac6c8d6a372ec9d7ac67c1bbee888429f48405e

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Citations in the corpus

General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the jet formation and large-scale propagation from black hole accretion systems (2006, background): “Possible evidence for a magnetic dominated outflow has been found in GRB 021206 (Coburn & Boggs 2003), marginally consistent with a magnetic outflow directly from the inner engine (Lyutikov, Pariev, & Blandford 2003), although these observations remain controversial.”
Re-analysis of polarization in the γ-ray flux of GRB 021206 (2003, methodology): “Recently, it was reported (Coburn & Boggs 2003, CB03 hereafter) that 80 ± 20 per cent polarization in the prompt, or burst, γ -rays of GRB 021206 was detected using the Spectroscopic Imager (Smith et al. 2002) on board the RHESSI satellite (Lin et al. 2002).”
Quantum-Spacetime Phenomenology (2008, background): “And there was a report [173] of observation of polarized MeV gamma rays in the prompt emission of the gamma-ray burst GRB 021206, which would have allowed very powerful bounds on energy-dependent birefringence to be established.”
RHESSI Observations of Particle Acceleration and Energy Release in an Intense Solar Gamma-Ray Line Flare (2003, background): “RHESSI is also capable of measuring the polarization of the HXRs (∼20–200 keV) through scattering from a well-placed passive beryllium-scattering cylinder into the rear segments of the surrounding GeDs (Smith et al. 2002; McConnell et al. 2002), and ofg-rays (∼0.15–2 MeV) through scattering directly”
DETECTION OF GAMMA-RAY POLARIZATION IN PROMPT EMISSION OF GRB 100826A (2011, unknown): “The first report was the detection of a high linear polarization of Π = 80 ± 20 % at a confidence level of > 5.7 σ by RHESSI from GRB 021206 (Coburn & Boggs 2003), although independent groups could not confirm any polarization signals by reanalyzing the same data (Rutledge & Fox 2004; Wigger et al.…”
High-resolution calculations of merging neutron stars - III. Gamma-ray bursts (2003, background): “Moreover, such magnetic mechanisms are supported by the recent observation of linear polarization in the prompt gamma-ray emission from GRB021206 (Coburn & Boggs 2003), which suggests that the GRB explosion is powered by a central engine with a strong, largescale magnetic field.”
Supernova hosts for gamma-ray burst jets: dynamical constraints (2002, background): “Finally, the jet could be confined by internal magnetic stresses, a possibility highlighted by the γ -ray polarization discovered by Coburn & Boggs (2003), but one beyond the scope of this paper.”
The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, result): “An analysis of RHESSI data of GRB 021206 suggested a polarization degree Π = (80±20)% (Coburn and Boggs, 2003), but the conclusion was refuted by an independent study (Rutledge and Fox, 2004).”
THE INTERNAL-COLLISION-INDUCED MAGNETIC RECONNECTION AND TURBULENCE (ICMART) MODEL OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2010, methodology): “Coburn and Boggs (2003) reported Π = 80%±20% for GRB 021206 using the RHESSI data.”
Polarization of Prompt Gamma-Ray Burst Emission: Evidence for Electromagnetically Dominated Outflow (2003, methodology): “We find that for observing angles satisfying θob ≥ 1/Γ a large polarization fraction Π ∼ 60% may be observed (the actual spectrum was not measured for GRB021206).”