1996/08/21 by Nir J. Shaviv, Shaviv, Nir J., Arnon Dar +1
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced X-ray and CT Imaging #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/9608135
Talk presented by A. Dar at the VIII-th Rencontre De Blois, ``Neutrinos and Dark Matter In The Universe'', June 6-12, 1996. To be published in the proceedings. 9 pages, latex, figures in astro-ph/9606032
arxiv created 1996/08/21 · openalex publication_date 1996/08/21 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Photoexcitation and ionization of partially ionized heavy atoms in highly relativistic flows by interstellar photons, followed by their reemission in radiative recombination and decay, boost star-light into beamed γ rays along the flow direction. Repeated excitation/decay of highly relativistic baryonic ejecta from merger or accretion induced collapse of neutron stars in dense stellar regions (DSRs), like galactic cores, globular clusters and super star-clusters, can convert enough kinetic energy in such events in distant galaxies into cosmological gamma ray bursts (GRBs). The model predicts remarkably well all the main observed temporal and spectral properties of GRBs. Its success strongly suggests that GRBs are γ ray tomography pictures of DSRs in galaxies at cosmological distances with unprecedented resolution: A time resolution of dt∼ 1~ms in a GRB can resolve stars at a Hubble distance which are separated by only D∼ 1010cm. This is equivalent to the resolving power of an optical telescope with a diameter larger than one Astronomical Unit!