No Arabic abstract
Long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest events since the Big Bang itself, are believed to originate in an ultra-relativistic jet breaking out from a massive stellar envelope. Despite decades of study, there is still no consensus on their emission mechanism. One unresolved question is the origin of the tight correlation between the spectral peak energy Ep and peak luminosity Lp discovered in observations. This Yonetoku relation is the tightest correlation found in the properties of the prompt phase of GRB emission, providing the best diagnostic for the radiation mechanism. Here we present 3D hydrodynamical simulations, and post-process radiation transfer calculations, of photospheric emission from a relativistic jet. Our simulations reproduce the Yonetoku relation as a natural consequence of viewing angle. Although jet dynamics depend sensitively on luminosity, the Ep-Lp correlation holds regardless. This result strongly suggests that photospheric emission is the dominant component in the prompt phase of GRBs.
It is generally believed that the variability of photospheric emission in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) traces that of the jet power. This work further investigates the variability of photospheric emission in a variable jet. By setting a constant $eta$ (dimensionless entropy of the jet), we find that the light curve of the photospheric emission shows a ``tracking pattern on the time profile of jet power. However, the relative variability is significantly low in the photospheric emission compared with that in the jet power. If the $eta$ is genetic variable, the variability of the photospheric emission is not only limited by the jet power but also affected by $eta$ strongly. It becomes complex and is generally different from that of the jet power. Moreover, the opposite phase may stand in the variabilities of the photospheric emission at different photon energies. We also find that the relative variability does not remain constant over the photon energies with an obvious reduction at a certain energy. This is consistent with the analysis of GRB 090902B in which an appreciable thermal component has been detected in a wide energy range. For several other GRBs coupling with the thermal component, we conservatively evaluate the variability of the thermal and non-thermal emission, respectively. Our results show that the relative variability of the thermal emission is likely comparable to that of the non-thermal emission for these bursts. In addition, the analysis of GRB~120323A reveals that the variability of the photospheric emission may be of the opposite phase from that of the non-thermal emission.
Among the more than 1000 gamma-ray bursts observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, a large fraction show narrow and hard spectra inconsistent with non-thermal emission, signifying optically thick emission from the photosphere. However, only a few of these bursts have spectra consistent with a pure Planck function. We will discuss the observational features of photospheric emission in these GRBs as well as in the ones showing multi-component spectra. We interpret the observations in light of models of subphotospheric dissipation, geometrical broadening and multi-zone emission, and show what we can learn about the dissipation mechanism and properties of GRB jets.
I investigate the origin of the observed correlation between a GRBs nuFnu spectral peak Epk and its isotropic equivalent energy Eiso through the use of a population synthesis code to model the prompt gamma-ray emission from GRBs. By using prescriptions for the distribution of prompt spectral parameters as well as the populations luminosity function and co-moving rate density, I generate a simulated population of GRBs and examine how bursts of varying spectral properties and redshift would appear to a gamma-ray detector here on Earth. I find that a strong observed correlation can be produced between the source frame Epk and Eiso for the detected population despite the existence of only a weak and broad correlation in the original simulated population. The energy dependance of a gamma-ray detectors flux-limited detection threshold acts to produce a correlation between the source frame Epk and Eiso for low luminosity GRBs, producing the left boundary of the observed correlation. Conversely, very luminous GRBs are found at higher redshifts than their low luminosity counterparts due to the standard Malquest bias, causing bursts in the low Epk, high Eiso regime to go undetected because their Epk values would be redshifted to energies at which most gamma-ray detectors become less sensitive. I argue that it is this previously unexamined effect which produces the right boundary of the observed correlation. Therefore, the origin of the observed correlation is a complex combination of the instruments detection threshold, the intrinsic cutoff in the GRB luminosity function, and the broad range of redshifts over which GRBs are detected. These simulations serve to demonstrate how selection effects caused by a combination of instrumental sensitivity and the cosmological nature of an astrophysical population can act to produce an artificially strong correlation between observed properties.
We calculate the high energy neutrino spectrum from gamma-ray bursts where the emission arises in a dissipative jet photosphere determined by either baryonically or magnetically dominated dynamics, and compare these neutrino spectra to those obtained in conventional internal shock models. We also calculate the diffuse neutrino spectra based on these models, which appear compatible with the current IceCube 40+59 constraints. While a re-analysis based on the models discussed here and the data from the full array would be needed, it appears that only those models with the most extreme parameters are close to being constrained at present. A multi-year operation of the full IceCube and perhaps a next generation of large volume neutrino detectors may be required in order to distinguish between the various models discussed.
The quasi-thermal components found in many Fermi gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) imply that the photosphere emission indeed contributes to the prompt emission of many GRBs. But whether the observed spectra empirically fitted by the Band function or cutoff power law, especially the spectral and peak energy ($E_{p}$) evolutions can be explained by the photosphere emission model alone needs further discussion. In this work, we investigate in detail the time-resolved spectra and $E_{p}$ evolutions of photospheric emission from a structured jet, with an inner-constant and outer-decreasing angular Lorentz factor profile. Also, a continuous wind with a time-dependent wind luminosity has been considered. We show that the photosphere spectrum near the peak luminosity is similar to the cutoff power-law spectrum. The spectrum can have the observed average low-energy spectral index $alpha $ $ sim -1$, and the distribution of the low-energy spectral index in our photosphere model is similar to that observed ($-2lesssim $ $alpha lesssim 0$). Furthermore, the two kinds of spectral evolutions during the decay phase, separated by the width of the core ($theta _{c}$), are consistent with the time-resolved spectral analysis results of several Fermi multi-pulse GRBs and single-pulse GRBs, respectively. Also, for this photosphere model we can reproduce the two kinds of observed $E_{p}$ evolution patterns rather well. Thus, by considering the photospheric emission from a structured jet, we reproduce the observations well for the GRBs best fitted by the cutoff power-law model for the peak-flux spectrum or the time-integrated spectrum.