Gamma-Ray Bursts: Progress, Problems & Prospects

By Bing Zhang, P. Mészáros. 2003

575 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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 introduced in a pedagogical manner. Several important uncertainties in the current understanding of the phenomenon are reviewed, and prospects of how future experiments and extensive observational and theoretical efforts may address these problems are discussed.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/903222b542f8aa3ec5550ff11c18451e1a546833

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. Pawan Kumar
3. E. Berger
4. B. Metzger
5. D. Schneider
6. E. Liang
7. P. Hopkins
8. L. Hernquist

Citations in the corpus

• COSMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF FAST RADIO BURST/GAMMA-RAY BURST ASSOCIATIONS (2013, methodology): “…equations, we calculate the rest frame GRB DM value, DMGRB,z for a set of typical values of GRB parameters (Panaitescu & Kumar 2002; Yost et al. 2003; Zhang & Mészáros 2004): r1 = 10 7 cm, Eiso = 10 53 erg, Γ0 = 300 (so that M0 = 3.7 × 10 29 g), δt = 500 s, n = 1 cm−3 (ISM) and A⋆ = 1 (wind).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. II. Diverse Physical Origins of the Shallow Decay Segment (2007, methodology): “The p values range from 2 ∼ 3.5 without evidence of clustering (see 8 Another injection scenario invoking a distribution of the Lorentz factor of the ejecta (Rees & Mészáros 1998) can be effectively represented by a long-term central engine (Zhang et al. 2006).”
• A COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF FERMI GAMMA-RAY BURST DATA. I. SPECTRAL COMPONENTS AND THE POSSIBLE PHYSICAL ORIGINS OF LAT/GBM GRBs (2010, background): “The fundamental uncertainties lie in the following three poorly known important properties of GRBs (e.g. Zhang & Mészáros 2004 for a review): (1) Ejecta composition: Are the ejecta mostly composed of baryonic matter or a Poynting flux?”
• THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, methodology): “Using the spectral and temporal information of the X-ray data, we can diagnose the spectral regime of the afterglow based on the closure relations (e.g. Zhang & Mészáros 2004; see Gao et al. 2013a for a complete review).”
• THE AFTERGLOWS OF SWIFT-ERA GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. TYPE I GRB VERSUS TYPE II GRB OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS (2008, background): “In the standard fireball model3, if the cooling frequency νc lies blueward of the optical bands, it is β = (p − 1)/2 (e.g., Sari et al. 1998; Zhang & Mészáros 2004; Piran 2005, and references therein), with the canonical value p = 2.2 (Kirk et al. 2000; Achterberg et al. 2001), implying β = 0.6.”
• THE LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ON THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION (2009, background): “Internal and external shock models (Zhang & Mészáros 2004) are currently constrained primarily by spectral and temporal behavior at sub-MeV energies (Fenimore et al. 1999), where the most detailed observations have been made.”
• The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, background): “This launched a new era in the study of GRBs which has led to a wealth of new information and a much deeper understanding of these enigmatic explosions (e.g. Frail et al., 1997; Kulkarni et al., 1998; Bloom et al., 1999; Zhang and Mészáros, 2004; Piran, 2004; Zhang, 2007; Gehrels et al., 2009).”
• The metallicity of the long GRB hosts and the fundamental metallicity relation of low-mass galaxies (2010, background): “Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic explosions in the Universe (see Zhang & Mészáros 2004 for a review) and detected in the γ-rays with a frequency of about one per day over the whole sky.”
• Dynamical Evolution of Neutrino-cooled Accretion Disks: Detailed Microphysics, Lepton-driven Convection, and Global Energetics (2005, background): “The energy released by accretion is then transformed into a relativistic outflow which produces the gamma ray burst (see Mészáros 2002; Zhang & Mészáros 2004; Piran 2004, for reviews).”
• Signatures of magnetar central engines in short GRB light curves (2013, background): “Also plotted are the closure relations f r the slow cooling regime (grey band) and the fast cooling regime (solid black lines) (Zhang & Mészáros 2004).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. I. Apparent Spectral Evolution of Gamma-Ray Burst X-Ray Tails (2006, background): “In either model, there are in principle two emission components (e.g., Zhang & Mészáros 2004 and references therein).”
• Methods and results of an automatic analysis of a complete sample of Swift-XRT observations of GRBs (2008, background): “11) We also show the regions covered by the standard afterglow closure relationships (from Zhang & Mészáros 2004); the thick grey band shows the range allowed by the pre-jet break emission in a slow cooling regime (i.e. the synchrotron peak frequency, νm is below the cooling frequency νc).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. III. Jet Break Candidates in X-Ray and Optical Afterglow Light Curves (2007, methodology): “…between the spectral index ( = 1) and the temporal decay slope of the GRB afterglows offer an approach to verify whether or not the data satisfy the models (see Table 1 of Zhang & Mészáros 2004 and references therein [in particular, Sari et al. 1998; Chevalier & Li 2000; Dai &Cheng 2001]).”
• Low-Luminosity Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Unique Population: Luminosity Function, Local Rate, and Beaming Factor (2006, background): “It is long speculated that long GRBs are associated with deaths of massive stars, and hence, SNe (for recent reviews, see Zhang & Mészáros 2004; Piran 2005; Mészáros 2006; Woosley & Bloom 2006).”
• CONSTRAINING GAMMA-RAY BURST INITIAL LORENTZ FACTOR WITH THE AFTERGLOW ONSET FEATURE AND DISCOVERY OF A TIGHT Γ0–Eγ,iso CORRELATION (2009, methodology): “The fireball model has been extensively employed to explain the gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon (Mészáros 2002; Zhang & Mészáros 2004; Piran 2004).”
• Short-hard gamma-ray bursts (2007, background): “Since there are no studies of this topic that are specific for SHBs, and given that this topic is well covered elsewhere (Zhang & Mészáros, 2004; Piran, 2005b,a; Mészáros, 2006; Lyutikov, 2006), I provide here only a brief overview.”
• Variabilities of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows: Long-acting Engine, Anisotropic Jet, or Many Fluctuating Regions? (2004, methodology): “The standard synchrotron shock model has been successful in explaining overall features of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows (e.g., Zhang & Mészáros 2004; Mészáros 2002).”