Thermal and non-thermal emission in gamma-ray bursts: GRB090902B as a case study

Sinéad McGlynn, Felix Ryde, Christoffer Lundman, Asaf Pe'er

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Photospheric (thermal) emission is inherent to the gamma-ray burst (GRB) "fireball" model. Inclusion of this component in the analysis of the GRB prompt emission explains some of the prompt GRB spectra seen by the Fermi satellite over its entire energy band. The sub-MeV peak corresponds to multi-color black body emission, and the high energy tail results from similar contributions of synchrotron emission, synchrotron self Compton (SSC) and Comptonization of the thermal photons by energetic electrons originating after dissipation of the kinetic energy above the photosphere. We study the connection between the thermal and non-thermal parts of the spectrum, and deduce the values of the free model parameters from the data. We demonstrate our analysis method on GRB 090902B.

Original languageEnglish
JournalProceedings of Science
StatePublished - 2010
Externally publishedYes
Event8th INTEGRAL Workshop on the Restless Gamma-Ray Universe, INTEGRAL 2010 - Dublin Castle, Dublin, Ireland
Duration: 27 Sep 201030 Sep 2010

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