Spectral variability in relativistic MHD winds

Details Spectral variability in relativistic MHD winds Spectral variability in relativistic MHD winds

May 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aipc..428..737t&link_type=abstract

Fourth Huntsville gamma-ray burst symposium. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 428, pp. 737-741 (1998).

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

2

Fundamental Aspects Of Astrophysics, Gamma-Ray Sources, Gamma-Ray Bursts

Scientific paper

Any cosmological GRB source with a rotation period of ~1 msec and the density of nuclear matter plausibly develops a very strong magnetic field B~1015 G, and disgorges ordered Poynting flux at the required rate of ~1051 erg s-1 [11,6]. This MHD wind advects outward an intense flux of thermal MeV photons which act as Compton seeds and regulate the thermodynamic state of matter. Electron-positron pairs created by photon collisions feed back strongly on the emergent spectrum, enhancing the efficiency of energy deposition in the leptonic component, and making regions of the wind with power-law high-energy spectra much brighter than regions with thermal spectra. By contrast, dissipation deep inside the electron-ion photosphere plausibly leads to quasi-thermal spectra, and may account for the soft X-ray tails seen by Ginga and soft subpulses seen by BATSE. Explicit solutions to the Kompaneets equation in an expanding wind containing isolated hotspots show that a broken power-law spectrum develops in a pair-dominated atmosphere that covers a very large range (~mp/me) in radius, and through which the integrated scattering depth significantly exceeds unity. The overall softening trend observed in many bursts may reflect gradual mixing between a high-Γ jet and surrounding lower-Γ material. We compare double Compton emission and cyclo-synchrotron radiation as sources of Compton seeds. The existence of bursts with soft high-energy cutoffs at rest frame energies much less than ~1 MeV indicates that quasi-thermal Comptonization is occuring. The γ-ray light-curve may provide interesting information about the central source if the asymptotic Lorentz factor is regulated by neutrino emission, yielding a characteristic luminosity of LP~1051 erg s-1. Off-axis material with Lorentz factor Γ∞~1-2 becomes optically thin to scattering with a delay of ~1 day(E/1052 erg)1/2, and can be a direct source of afterglow radiation.

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