Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Sep 1991
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991a%26a...249..581b&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 249, no. 2, Sept. 1991, p. 581-588.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
19
Gamma Ray Bursts, Neutron Stars, Photon Absorptiometry, Quantum Electrodynamics, Relativistic Plasmas, Compton Effect, Emission Spectra, Kinetic Equations, Magnetic Fields
Scientific paper
The exotic QED process of the splitting of a photon into two photons in the presence of a strong magnetic field, which is impossible in a field-free region, is studied to determine its possible signatures in gamma-ray burst spectra. It is found to indeed be an astrophysically-observable phenomenon for fields of around 1.5 exp 12 Gauss or more, where photon splitting produces a characteristic flattening of the GRB emission spectrum at hard X-ray energies and a bump at gamma-ray energies below a high-energy turnover that is caused by the single-photon pair production mechanism. Photon splitting is unobservable for smaller magnetic fields, where pair production dominates it as a photon absorption process. The observation of such a flattening in GRB spectra could provide an important astrophysical verification of photon splitting as a strong-field prediction of QED.
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