2002/05/14 by Nathan D. George, Arkady Kheyfets, John M. McGhee +2 · 29 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Accretion (finance) #Angular momentum #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Black hole (networking) #Classical mechanics #Galaxy #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Halo #Neutrino #Nuclear physics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum mechanics #Scattering #Thick disk #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/345471
published in The Astrophysical Journal 583(2), 833-841 (IOP Publishing) · 21 pages, 9 figures, (Author Contact: [email protected])
arxiv created 2002/05/14 · openalex publication_date 2003/02/01 · arxiv updated 2010/11/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The search for an understanding of an energy source great enough to explain the gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon has attracted much attention from the astrophysical community since its discovery. In this paper we extend the work of Asano and Fukuyama, and Salmonson and Wilson and analyze the off-axis contributions to the energy-momentum deposition rate (MDR) from the ν- collisions above a rotating black hole/thin accretion disk system. Our calculations are performed by imaging the accretion disk at a specified observer using the full geodesic equations and calculating the cumulative MDR from the scattering of all pairs of neutrinos and antineutrinos arriving at the observer. Our results shed light on the beaming efficiency of GRB models of this kind. Although we confirm Asano and Fukuyama's conjecture as to the constancy of the beaming for small angles away from the axis, we find that the dominant contribution to the MDR comes from near the surface of the disk with a tilt of approximately π/4 in the direction of the disk's rotation. We find that the MDR at large radii is directed outward in a conic section centered around the symmetry axis and is larger by a factor of 10-20 than the on-axis values. By including this off-axis disk source, we find a linear dependence of the MDR on the black hole angular momentum.