32,858 research outputs found
Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows from Realistic Fireballs
A GRB afterglow has been commonly thought to be due to continuous
deceleration of a postburst fireball. Many analytical models have made
simplifications for deceleration dynamics of the fireball and its radiation
property, although they are successful at explaining the overall features of
the observed afterglows. We here propose a model for a GRB afterglow in which
the evolution of a postburst fireball is in an intermediate case between the
adiabatic and highly radiative expansion. In our model, the afterglow is both
due to the contribution of the adiabatic electrons behind the external
blastwave of the fireball and due to the contribution of the radiative
electrons. In addition, this model can describe evolution of the fireball from
the extremely relativistic phase to the non-relativistic phase. Our
calculations show that the fireball will go to the adiabatic expansion phase
after about a day if the accelerated electrons are assumed to occupy the total
internal energy. In all cases considered, the fireball will go to the mildly
relativistic phase about seconds later, and to the non-relativistic
phase after several days. These results imply that the relativistic adiabatic
model cannot describe the deceleration dynamics of the several-days-later
fireball. The comparison of the calculated light curves with the observed
results at late times may imply the presence of impulsive events or energy
injection with much longer durations.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figures, plain latex file, submitted to Ap
Pair loading in Gamma-Ray Burst Fireball And Prompt Emission From Pair-Rich Reverse Shock
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from ultra-relativistic
winds/fireballs to avoid the "compactness problem". However, the most energetic
photons in GRBs may still suffer from absorption leading to
electron/positron pair production in the winds/fireballs. We show here that in
a wide range of model parameters, the resulting pairs may dominate those
electrons associated with baryons. Later on, the pairs would be carried into a
reverse shock so that a shocked pair-rich fireball may produce a strong flash
at lower frequencies, i.e. in the IR band, in contrast with optical/UV emission
from a pair-poor fireball. The IR emission would show a 5/2 spectral index due
to strong self-absorption. Rapid responses to GRB triggers in the IR band would
detect such strong flashes. The future detections of many IR flashes will infer
that the rarity of prompt optical/UV emissions is in fact due to dust
obscuration in the star formation regions.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, ApJ accepte
The equation of state for two-dimensional hard-sphere gases: Hard-sphere gases as ideal gases with multi-core boundaries
The equation of state for a two-dimensional hard-sphere gas is difficult to
calculate by usual methods. In this paper we develop an approach for
calculating the equation of state of hard-sphere gases, both for two- and
three-dimensional cases. By regarding a hard-sphere gas as an ideal gas
confined in a container with a multi-core (excluded sphere) boundary, we treat
the hard-sphere interaction in an interacting gas as the boundary effect on an
ideal quantum gas; this enables us to treat an interacting gas as an ideal one.
We calculate the equation of state for a three-dimensional hard-sphere gas with
spin , and compare it with the results obtained by other methods. By this
approach the equation of state for a two-dimensional hard-sphere gas can be
calculated directly.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Analytical and numerical studies of central galactic outflows powered by tidal disruption events -- a model for the Fermi bubbles?
Capture and tidal disruption of stars by the supermassive black hole in the
Galactic center (GC) should occur regularly. The energy released and dissipated
by this processes will affect both the ambient environment of the GC and the
Galactic halo. A single star of super-Eddington eruption generates a subsonic
out ow with an energy release of more than erg, which still is not
high enough to push shock heated gas into the halo. Only routine tidal
disruption of stars near the GC can provide enough cumulative energy to form
and maintain large scale structures like the Fermi Bubbles. The average rate of
disruption events is expected to be ~ yr, providing
the average power of energy release from the GC into the halo of dW/dt ~
3*10 erg/s, which is needed to support the Fermi Bubbles. The GC black
hole is surrounded by molecular clouds in the disk, but their overall mass and
filling factor is too low to stall the shocks from tidal disruption events
significantly. The de facto continuous energy injection on timescales of Myr
will lead to the propagation of strong shocks in a density stratified Galactic
halo and thus create elongated bubble-like features, which are symmetric to the
Galactic midplane.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. The title and abstract have been changed.
Accepted by Astrophysical Journa
Modeling the Optical Afterglow of GRB 030329
The best-sampled afterglow light curves are available for GRB 030329. A
distinguishing feature of this event is the obvious rebrightening at around 1.6
days after the burst. Proposed explanations for the rebrightening mainly
include the two-component jet model and the refreshed shock model, although a
sudden density-jump in the circumburst environment is also a potential choice.
Here we re-examine the optical afterglow of GRB 030329 numerically in light of
the three models. In the density-jump model, no obvious rebrightening can be
produced at the jump moment. Additionally, after the density jump, the
predicted flux density decreases rapidly to a level that is significantly below
observations. A simple density-jump model thus can be excluded. In the
two-component jet model, although the observed late afterglow (after 1.6 days)
can potentially be explained as emission from the wide-component, the emergence
of this emission actually is too slow and it does not manifest as a
rebrightening as previously expected. The energy-injection model seems to be
the most preferred choice. By engaging a sequence of energy-injection events,
it provides an acceptable fit to the rebrightening at d, as well as
the whole observed light curve that extends to d. Further studies on
these multiple energy-injection processes may provide a valuable insight into
the nature of the central engines of gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures; a few references added and minor word changes;
now accepted for publication in Ap
Lensing of gravitational waves: efficient wave-optics methods and validation with symmetric lenses
Gravitational wave (GW) astronomy offers the potential to probe the wave-optics regime of gravitational lensing. Wave optics (WO) effects are relevant at low frequencies, when the wavelength is comparable to the characteristic lensing time delay multiplied by the speed of light, and are thus often negligible for electromagnetic signals. Accurate predictions require computing the conditionally convergent diffraction integral, which involves highly oscillatory integrands and is numerically difficult. We develop and implement several methods to compute lensing predictions in the WO regime valid for general gravitational lenses. First, we derive approximations for high and low frequencies, obtaining explicit expressions for several analytic lens models. Next, we discuss two numerical methods suitable in the intermediate frequency range: 1) Regularized contour flow yields accurate answers in a fraction of a second for a broad range of frequencies. 2) Complex deformation is slower, but requires no knowledge of solutions to the geometric lens equation. Both methods are independent and complement each other. We verify sub-percent accuracy for several lens models, which should be sufficient for applications to GW astronomy in the near future. Apart from modelling lensed GWs, our method will also be applicable to the study of plasma lensing of radio waves and tests of gravity
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