GRB Fireball Physics: Prompt and Early Emission

Abstract

We review the fireball shock model of gamma-ray burst prompt and early afterglow emission in light of rapid follow-up measurements made and enabled by the multi-wavelength Swift satellite. These observations are leading to a reappraisal and expansion of the previous standard view of the GRB and its fireball. New information on the behavior of the burst and afterglow on minutes to hour timescales has led, among other results, to the discovery and follow-up of short GRB afterglows, the opening up of the z>6 redshift range, and the first prompt multi-wavelength observations of a long GRB-supernova. We discuss the salient observational results and some associated theoretical issues.

23 pages. Published in the New Journal of Physics Focus Issue, "Focus on Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era" (Eds. D. H. Hartmann, C. D. Dermer & J. Greiner). V2: Minor changes

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• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Relativistic Jets
• Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era
• Extending the search for muon neutrinos coincident with gamma-ray bursts in IceCube data
• An All-Sky Search for Three Flavors of Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray Bursts with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• Phase transitions and He-synthesis driven winds in neutrino cooled accretion disks: prospects for late flares in short gamma-ray bursts
• A Turbulent Model of Gamma-Ray Burst Variability
• GRB 140206A: the most distant polarized Gamma-Ray Burst
• Fundamentals of collisionless shocks for astrophysical application, 2. Relativistic shocks
• Numerical Simulations of Driven Relativistic MHD Turbulence
• Prompt GeV-TeV Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts Due to High-Energy Protons, Muons and Electron-Positron Pairs
• Thermal and non-thermal emission from the cocoon of a gamma-ray burst jet
• Prompt X-ray and Optical Excess Emission due to Hadronic Cascades in Gamma-Ray Bursts
• The short GRB070707 afterglow and its very faint host galaxy
• Revisiting coincidence rate between Gravitational Wave detection and short Gamma-Ray Burst for the Advanced and third generation
• A relativistic partially electromagnetic planar plasma shock
• Search for Gamma Ray Bursts with the Argo-YBJ Detector in Scaler Mode
• GLAST Prospects for Swift-Era Afterglows
• Dynamical Properties of Internal Shocks Revisited
• Some Theoretical Implications of Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Burst observations
• Magnetic field amplification and electron acceleration to near-energy equipartition with ions by a mildly relativistic quasi-parallel plasma protoshock
• Relationship between pulse width and energy in GRB 060124: from X-ray to gamma-ray bands
• Multidimensional simulations of magnetic field amplification and electron acceleration to near-energy equipartition with ions by a mildly relativistic quasi-parallel plasma collision
• Classifying initial conditions of long GRBs modeled with relativistic radiation hydrodynamics
• Evolution of perturbed accelerating relativistic shock waves