2002/06/30 by X. Y. Wang, Xiang-Gao Wang, Z. G. Dai +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2002.05814.x
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 336 (2002) 803-807 · 12 pages, two missing references added, MNRAS, in press
arxiv created 2002/08/24 · openalex publication_date 2002/11/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may occur within pulsar wind bubbles (PWBs) under a number of scenarios, such as the supranova-like models in which the progenitor pulsar drives a powerful wind shocking against the ambient medium before it comes to death and produces a fireball. We here study the early afterglow emission from GRBs expanding into such a PWB environment. Different from the usual cold GRB external medium, the PWBs consist of a hot electron–positron (e+e−) medium with typical ‘thermal’ Lorentz factor of the order of γw, the Lorentz factor of the pulsar particle wind. After GRB blast waves shock these hot e+e− pairs, they will emit synchrotron radiation peaking at GeV bands. It is shown that GeV photons suffer negligible absorption by the soft photons radiation field in PWBs. Thus, strong GeV emissions in the early afterglow phases are expected, providing a plausible explanation for the long-duration GeV emission from GRB940217 detected by EGRET. In the future the GLAST detector may have the potential to test this GRB–PWB interaction model.