Gamma-ray burst
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/63/Gamma_ray_burst.jpg/350px-Gamma_ray_burst.jpg)
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies; they are the most luminous electromagnetic events in the universe since the Big Bang. Their duration is typically a few seconds, but can range from a few milliseconds to several minutes. The initial burst is usually followed by a longer-lived "afterglow" emitting at longer wavelengths (X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and radio).
Most observed GRBs are believed to be a narrow beam of intense radiation released during a supernova event, as a rapidly rotating, high-mass star collapses to form a black hole. A subclass of GRBs (the "short" bursts) appear to originate from a different process, possibly the merger of binary neutron stars.
The sources of most GRBs are billions of light years away. Because of these vast distances, GRBs must be extremely energetic events (a typical burst releases as much energy in a few seconds as the Sun does in its entire lifetime) and also extremely rare (a few per galaxy per million years[1]). All observed GRBs have originated from outside the Milky Way galaxy, although a related class of phenomena, soft gamma repeater flares, are associated with magnetars within the Milky Way. It has been hypothesized that a gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way could cause a mass extinction on Earth.[2]
GRBs were first detected in 1967 by the Vela satellites, a series of satellites designed to detect covert nuclear weapons tests. In the years following their discovery, hundreds of theoretical models were proposed to explain these bursts, such as collisions between comets and neutron stars.[3] Little information was available to verify these models until the 1997 detection of the first X-ray and optical afterglows and direct measurement of their redshifts using optical spectroscopy. These discoveries, and subsequent studies of the galaxies and supernovae associated with the bursts, clarified the distance and luminosity of GRBs, definitively placing them in distant galaxies and connecting long GRBs with the deaths of massive stars.
History
Gamma-ray bursts were discovered in the late 1960s by the U.S. Vela satellites, which were built to detect gamma radiation pulses emitted by nuclear weapons tested in space. The United States had suspected that the USSR might attempt to conduct secret nuclear tests after signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. On July 2, 1967, at 14:19 UTC, the Vela 4 and Vela 3 satellites detected a flash of gamma radiation unlike any known nuclear weapons signature.[4] Uncertain what had happened but not considering the matter particularly urgent, the team at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, led by Ray Klebesadel, filed the data away for investigation. As additional Vela satellites were launched with better instruments, the Los Alamos team continued to find inexplicable gamma-ray bursts in their data. By analyzing the different arrival times of the bursts as seen from different satellites, the team was able to determine rough estimates for the sky positions of sixteen bursts[4] and definitively rule out a terrestrial or solar origin. The discovery was declassified and published in 1973 as an Astrophysical Journal article entitled "Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin".[5]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/BATSE_2704.jpg/300px-BATSE_2704.jpg)
Many theories were advanced to explain these bursts, most of which posited nearby Galactic sources. Little progress was made until the 1991 launch of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and its Burst and Transient Source Explorer (BATSE) instrument, an extremely sensitive gamma-ray detector. This instrument provided crucial data indicating that the distribution of GRBs is isotropic—not biased towards any particular direction in space, such as toward the Galactic plane or the Galactic center.[6] Because of the flat structure of the Milky Way galaxy, nearly all Galactic sources are strongly concentrated in or near the Galactic plane. The absence of any such pattern in the case of GRBs provided strong evidence that gamma-ray bursts must come from great distances.[7][8][9] However, some Galactic models were still consistent with an isotropic distribution.[10]
For decades after the discovery of GRBs, astronomers searched for a counterpart: any astronomical object in positional coincidence with a recently observed burst. Astronomers considered many distinct classes of objects, including white dwarfs, pulsars, supernovae, globular clusters, quasars, Seyfert galaxies, and BL Lac objects.[11] All such searches were unsuccessful[nb 1], and in a few cases particularly well-localized bursts (those whose positions were determined very accurately for the time) could be clearly shown to have no bright objects of any nature consistent with the position derived from the detecting satellites, indicating an origin either in very faint stars or extremely distant galaxies[12][13]. Unfortunately, even these best positions contained numerous faint stars and galaxies, and it was widely agreed that final resolution of the origins of cosmic gamma-ray bursts would require both new satellites and faster communication. [14]
Several models for the origin of gamma-ray bursts postulated[15] that the initial burst of gamma-rays should be followed by fainter emission at longer wavelengths created by the resulting shockwave in interstellar gas that would fade over a longer timescale. Early searches for this signature were unsuccessful, largely due to the difficulties in observing the large areas on the sky provided by the poor resolution of early GRB detectors rapidly enough to catch a faint object before it faded away. The breakthrough came in February 1997 when the satellite BeppoSAX[nb 2] detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 970228) and when the X-ray camera was pointed towards the direction from which the burst had originated, it detected fading X-ray emission. Ground-based telescopes later identified a fading optical counterpart as well.[16] Once the GRB faded, deep imaging was able to identify a faint, very distant host galaxy at the location of the GRB as pinpointed by the optical afterglow. Within only a few weeks the long controversy about the distance scale ended: GRBs were extragalactic events originating inside faint galaxies at enormous distances. By finally establishing the distance scale, characterizing the environments in which GRBs occur, and providing a new window on GRBs both observationally and theoretically, this discovery revolutionized the study of GRBs.[17]
Because of the very faint nature of this host galaxy, its exact distance was not measured for several years. Well before then, two major breakthroughs occurred with the next event registered by BeppoSAX, GRB 970508. This event was localized within four hours of its discovery, allowing research teams to begin making observations much sooner than any previous burst. The spectrum of the object revealed a redshift of z = 0.835, placing the burst at a distance of roughly 6 billion light years from Earth.[18] This was the first accurate determination of the distance to a GRB, and it further proved that GRBs occur in extremely distant galaxies.[19] This was also the first burst with an observed radio frequency afterglow.[20] The association of (most) GRBs with supernovae was established the following year with the observation of GRB 980425, the nearest long-duration gamma-ray burst to Earth to date, which was associated with a bright supernova (SN 1998bw).
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Swift_spacecraft.jpg/220px-Swift_spacecraft.jpg)
BeppoSAX functioned until about 2002 and CGRO (with BATSE) was deorbited in 2000. However, the revolution in the study of gamma-ray bursts motivated the development a number of additional instruments designed specifically to explore the nature of GRBs, especially in the earliest moments following the explosion. The first such mission, HETE-2[21], launched in 2000 and functioned until about 2005, providing most of the major discoveries during this period. One of the most successful space missions to date, Swift, was launched in 2004 and is still operational.[22][23] Swift is equipped with a very sensitive gamma-ray detector as well as on-board X-ray and optical telescopes, which can be rapidly and automatically slewed to observe afterglow emission following a burst. Most recently, the Fermi mission was launched carrying the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor, which detects bursts at a rate of several hundred per yer, a few of which are bright enough to also be observed at extremely high energies with the Large Area Telescope. Meanwhile, on the ground, numerous optical telescopes have been built or modified to incorporate robotic control software that responds immediately to signals over the Gamma-ray Burst Coordinates Network to rapidly repoint the telescope towards a burst, often within a few seconds while the gamma-ray burst itself is still occurring.
Among the discoveries of the past few years have been the recognition of short gamma-ray bursts as a separate class (likely due to merging neutron stars and not associated with supernovae), the discovery of extended, erratic flaring activity at X-ray wavelengths lasting for many minutes after most GRBs, and the discovery of the most luminous (GRB 080319B) and the most distant (GRB 090423) objects in the universe.
Types of Gamma-Ray Bursts
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Grb_profiles.png/220px-Grb_profiles.png)
While most astronomical transient sources have simple and consistent time structure (typically a rapid brightening followed by gradual fading, as in a nova or supernova), the light curves of gamma-ray bursts are extremely diverse and complex.[24] No two gamma-ray burst light curves are identical, with large variation observed in almost every property: the duration of observable emission can vary from milliseconds to tens of minutes, there can be a single peak or several individual subpulses, and individual peaks can be symmetric or with fast brightening and very slow fading. Some bursts are preceded by a "precursor" event, a weak burst that is then followed (after seconds to minutes of no emission at all) by the much more intense "true" bursting episode.[25] The light curves of some events have extremely complicated profiles with no discernible pattern whatsoever.
Although some light curves can be roughly reproduced using certain simplified models[26], little progress has been made in understanding the full diversity observed. However, two broad classes are now widely recognized as probably reflective of true physical differences, recognizable (partially) based on their high-energy light curves. In particular, plots of the distribution of the observed duration[nb 3] for a large number of gamma-ray bursts show a clear bimodality, suggesting the existence of two separate populations: a "short" population with an average duration of about 0.3 seconds and a "long" population with an average duration of about 30 seconds.[27] However, both distributions are very broad with a significant overlap region in which the identity of a given event is not clear from duration alone. Furthermore, additional classes beyond this two-tiered system have been proposed on both observational and theoretical grounds.[28][29][30][31]
Long Gamma-Ray Bursts
Most observed events have a duration of greater than two seconds and are classified as long gamma-ray bursts. Because these events constitute the majority of the population and because they tend to have the brightest afterglows, they have been studied in much greater detail than their short counterparts. Almost every well-studied long gamma-ray burst has been associated with a rapidly star-forming galaxy and in many cases a supernova as well,[32] linking these events unambiguously with the deaths of massive stars.
Short Gamma-Ray Bursts
Events with a duration of less than about two seconds are classified as short gamma-ray bursts. Until 2005 no afterglow had been successfully detected from any short event and very little was known about their origins. Since then, several dozen short gamma-ray burst afterglows have been detected, many of which are associated with regions of little or no star formation, including large elliptical galaxies and the intracluster medium[33][34][35], which would seem to rule out association with massive stars in these cases, confirming that short events are truly a physically distinct class. The true nature of these objects (or even whether there is one or several classes of progenitors) remains unknown, although a leading hypothesis is that they originate from the mergers of binary neutron stars.[36]. A small fraction of short gamma-ray bursts are probably associated with giant flares from soft gamma repeaters in other, relatively nearby galaxies. [37][38]
Energetics and Beaming
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/GRB080319B_illustration_NASA.jpg/300px-GRB080319B_illustration_NASA.jpg)
Gamma-ray bursts are very bright as observed from Earth despite typical immense distances. An average long GRB has comparable bolometric flux to a bright galactic star despite a distance of billions of light years (compared to a few tens of light years for most stars). Most of this energy is released in gamma rays, though some GRBs have extremely luminous optical counterparts also: for example, GRB 080319B was accompanied by an optical counterpart that peaked at 5.8 visible magnitude[39], comparable to that of the dimmest naked-eye stars in spite of a distance of 7.5 billion light years. This combination of extreme brightness and great distance requires a tremendously energetic source. Assuming the gamma-ray explosion to be spherical, the energy output of GRB 080319B would be within a factor of two of the rest-mass energy of the Sun (the energy which would be released were the Sun to be converted entirely into radiation.)
No known process in the Universe can produce this much energy in such a short time period. However, gamma-ray bursts are thought to be highly focused explosions, with most of the explosion energy collimated into a narrow jet traveling at speeds exceeding 99.995% of the speed of light.[40][41] The approximate angular width of the jet (that is, the degree of beaming) can be estimated directly by observing "jet breaks" in afterglow light curves: a time after which the slowly-decaying afterglow abruptly begins to fade rapidly as the jet slows down and can no longer beam its radiation as effectively.[42][43] Observations suggest significant variation in the jet angle from between 2 and 20 degrees[44].
Because their energy is strongly beamed, most gamma-ray bursts are expected to "miss" the Earth and never be seen. When a gamma-ray burst is pointed towards Earth, however, the focusing of its energy along a relatively narrow beam causes the burst to appear much brighter than it would have been were its energy emitted spherically. When this effect is corrected for using estimates of the beaming angle, typical gamma-ray bursts have a true energy release of about 1044 J, or about 1/2000 of a Solar mass energy equivalent.[44] This is comparable to the energy released in a bright type Ib/c supernova (sometimes termed a "hypernova") and within the range of theoretical models. In fact, very bright supernovae have been observed to accompany several of the nearest GRBs.[45] Additional support for strong beaming in GRBs has come from observations of strong asymmetries in the spectra of nearby type Ic supernova and from radio observations taken well after the burst, when the jet is no longer relativistic.
Short GRBs appear to come from a lower-redshift population and are less luminous than long GRBs.[46] The degree of beaming in short bursts has not been well-measured, but as a population they are likely less beamed than long GRBs [47] or possibly not beamed at all in some cases.[48]
Progenitors
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Wolf_rayet2.jpg/220px-Wolf_rayet2.jpg)
Because of the immense distances of most gamma-ray burst sources from Earth, identification of the progenitors, the systems that produce these explosions, is particularly challenging. Nevertheless, the association of some long GRBs with supernovae and the fact that their host galaxies are rapidly star-forming offer very strong evidence that long gamma-ray bursts are associated with massive stars. The most widely-accepted mechanism for the origin of long-duration GRBs is called the collapsar model,[49] in which the core of an extremely massive, low-metallicity, rapidly-rotating star collapses into a black hole in the final stages of its evolution). Matter from the star around the core rains down towards the center and swirls into a high-density accretion disk. The infall of this material into the black hole drives a pair of relativistic jets out along the rotational axis, which pummel through the stellar envelope and eventually break through the stellar surface and radiate as gamma-rays. Some alternative models replace the black hole with a newly-formed magnetar,[50] though most other aspects of the model (the collapse of the core of a massive star and the formation of relativistic jets) are the same.
The closest Galactic analogs of the stars producing long gamma-ray bursts are likely the Wolf-Rayet stars, extremely hot and massive stars which have shed most or all of their hydrogen due to radiation pressure. Eta Carinae and WR 104 have been cited as possible gamma-ray burst progenitors. [51]However, it is unclear if any star in the Milky Way has the appropriate characteristics to produce a gamma-ray burst.[52]
The massive-star model probably does not explain all types of gamma-ray burst. In particular, there is strong evidence that some short-duration gamma-ray bursts occur in systems with no star formation and perhaps even in galaxy halos or in intergalactic space[46] where no massive stars are present. The favored theory for the origin of most short gamma-ray bursts is the merger of a binary system consisting of two neutron stars. Under this model, the two stars in a binary slowly spiral towards each other due to the release of energy via gravitational radiation,[53][54] until in the final few seconds the neutron stars suddenly rip each other apart due to tidal forces and collapse into a single black hole. The infall of matter into the new black hole in an accretion disk then powers an explosion, much as in the collapsar model. However, numerous other models have also been proposed to explain short gamma-ray bursts, including the merger of a neutron star and a black hole or the accretion-induced collapse of a neutron star.[55][56][57]
Emission mechanisms
The means by which gamma-ray bursts convert energy into radiation remains poorly understood, and as of 2007 there was still no generally accepted model for how this process occurs.[58] Any successful model of GRB emission must explain the physical process for generating gamma-ray emission that matches the observed diversity of light-curves, spectra, and other characteristics.[59] Particularly challenging is need to explain the very high efficiencies that are inferred from some explosions: some gamma-ray bursts may convert as much as half (or more) of the explosion energy into gamma-rays. [60] Recently observations of the bright optical counterpart of GRB 080319B,[39] whose light curve was strongly correlated with the gamma-ray light curve,[61] has suggested that inverse Compton may be the dominant process in at least some events. In this model, pre-existing low-energy photons are scattered by relativistic electrons within the explosion, boosting their energy by a large factor and transforming them into gamma-rays.
The nature of the longer-wavelength afterglow emission ranging from X-ray through radio that follows gamma-ray bursts is better understood. Any energy released by the explosion not radiated away in the burst itself takes the form of an outflow of matter or energy moving outward at nearly the speed of light. As this matter plows into the surrounding gas, it creates a relativistic shock wave that then propagates forward into interstellar space. (A second shock wave, the reverse shock, may propagate back into the ejected matter.) Extremely energetic electrons within the shock wave are accelerated by strong local magnetic fields and radiate as synchrotron emission across most of the electromagnetic spectrum.[62][63] This model has generally been successful in modeling the behavior of many observed afterglows at late times (generally, hours to days after the explosion), though may have difficulties explaining all features of the afterglow very shortly after the gamma-ray burst has occurred.[64]
Rates and impacts on life
Current orbiting satellites detect on average of about one gamma-ray burst per day. Because gamma-ray bursts are visible to distances encompassing most of the observable universe (a volume encompassing many billions of galaxies), this suggests that gamma-ray bursts must be exceedingly rare events per galaxy. Measuring the exact rate is difficult, but for a Milky-Way sized galaxy, the expected rate (for long GRBs) is about one burst every 100,000 to 1,000,000 years. [1] Only a few percent of these would be beamed towards Earth. Estimates of the rates of short GRBs are even more uncertain because of the unknown beaming fraction, but are probably comparable. [65]
A gamma-ray burst in the Milky Way, if close enough to Earth and appropriately directed, could have significant effects on the biosphere. The absorption of radiation in the atmosphere would cause photodissociation of nitrogen, generating nitric oxide that would act as a catalyst to destroy ozone.[66] According to a 2004 study, a GRB at a distance of about a kiloparsec could destroy up to half of Earth's ozone layer; the direct UV irradiation from the burst combined with additional solar UV radiation passing through the diminished ozone layer could then have potentially significant impacts on the food chain and potentially trigger a mass extinction.[2][67] The authors calculate that statistically about one such burst is expected per billion years, and hypothesize that Ordovician-Silurian extinction event could have been the result of such a trigger.
However, there are strong indications that long gamma-ray bursts preferentially or exclusively occur in regions of low metallicity. Because the Milky Way has been metal-rich since before the Earth formed, this effect may diminish or even eliminate the possibility that a long gamma-ray burst has occurred within the Milky Way within the past billion years.[52] No such metallicity biases are known for short gamma-ray bursts, however, and depending on the local rate and beaming properties of these events the possibility for a nearby event to have a large impact on Earth at some point in geological time may still be significant.
See also
- Category:Gamma-ray telescopes
- Gamma-ray astronomy
- Stellar evolution
- Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes
- List of gamma-ray bursts
Footnotes
- ^ A notable exception is the March 5th event of 1979, an extremely bright burst that was successfully localized to supernova remnant N49 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This event is now interpreted as a magnetar giant flare, more related to SGR flares than "true" gamma-ray bursts.
- ^ GRBs are named after the date on which they are discovered: the first two digits being the year, followed by the two-digit month and two-digit day. If two or more GRBs occur on a given day, the name is appended with a letter 'A' for the first burst identified, 'B' for the second and so on.
- ^ The duration of a burst is typically measured by T90, the duration of the period which 90 percent of the burst's energy is emitted. Recently some otherwise "short" GRBs have been shown to be followed by a second, much longer emission episode that when included in the burst light curve results in T90 durations of up to several minutes: these events are only short in the literal sense when this component is excluded.
Notes
- ^ a b Podsiadlowski 2004
- ^ a b Melott 2004
- ^ Hurley 2003
- ^ a b Schilling 2002, p.12–16
- ^ Klebesadel 1973
- ^ Meegan 1992
- ^ Schilling 2002, p.36–37
- ^ Paczyński 1999, p. 6
- ^ Piran 1992
- ^ Lamb 1995
- ^ Hurley 1986, p. 33
- ^ Pedersen 1987
- ^ Hurley 1992
- ^ Fishman & Meegan 1995
- ^ Paczynski 1993
- ^ van Paradijs 1997
- ^ Frontera 1998
- ^ Reichart 1995
- ^ Schilling 2002, p. 118–123
- ^ NRAO 1997
- ^ Ricker 2003
- ^ McCray 2008
- ^ Gehrels 2004
- ^ Katz 2002, p. 37
- ^ Lazatti 2005
- ^ Simić 2005
- ^ Kouveliotou 1994
- ^ Horvath 1998
- ^ Hakkila 2003
- ^ Chattopadhyay 2007
- ^ Virgili 2009
- ^ Woosley & Bloom 2006
- ^ Bloom 2006
- ^ Hjorth 2005
- ^ Berger 2007
- ^ Nakar 2007
- ^ Frederiks 2008
- ^ Hurley 2005
- ^ a b Racusin 2008
- ^ Rykoff 2009
- ^ Abdo 2009
- ^ Sari 1999
- ^ Burrows 2006
- ^ a b Frail 2001
- ^ Galama 1998
- ^ a b Prochaska 2006
- ^ Watson 2006
- ^ Grupe 2006
- ^ MacFadyen 1999
- ^ Metzger 2007
- ^ Plait 2008
- ^ a b Stanek 2006
- ^ Abbott 2007
- ^ Kochanek 1993
- ^ Vietri 1998
- ^ MacFadyen 2006
- ^ Blinnikov 1984
- ^ Stern 2007
- ^ Fishman, G. 1995
- ^ Fan & Piran 2006
- ^ Wozniak 2009
- ^ Meszaros 1997
- ^ Sari 1998
- ^ Nousek 2006
- ^ Guetta 2006
- ^ Thorsett 1995
- ^ Wanjek 2005
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External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg/40px-Wiktionary-logo-en-v2.svg.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- GRB Mission Sites
- Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission:
- HETE-2: High Energy Transient Explorer
- INTEGRAL: INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory
- BATSE: Burst and Transient Source Explorer
- Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
- AGILE: Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini Leggero
- EXIST: Energetic X-ray Survey Telescope
- GRB Follow-up Programs
- GROND: Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Near-infrared Detector
- PROMPT: Panchromatic Robotic Optical Monitoring and Polarimetry Telescopes (Wiki entry)
- RAPTOR: Rapid Telescopes for Optical Response
- ROTSE: Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment
- PAIRITEL: Peters Automated Infrared Imaging Telescope
- MASTER: Mobile Astronomical System of the Telescope-Robots
- KAIT: The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope
- REM: Rapid Eye Mount