Informazioni sull’evento

02/09/2018

Joint Astrophysical Colloquium

Frontiers in Gamma Ray Burst Research

Nicholas E. White (The George Washington University)

Thursday 29/06/2023 @ 11:30, Sala IV piano Battiferro

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions known and for a few hours they are the most luminous sources in the multi wavelength sky. They are of broad astrophysical interest not only to understand their origin and physical process, but also as Cosmological and multi-messenger probes. The past two decades of Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) investigations have been driven by the Neil Gehrels Swift and Fermi Observatories. The discoveries have been numerous including the identification of long GRBs with core collapse supernovae, population studies that show their evolution approximately follows the star formation history of the Universe, identification of GRBs from the high redshift Universe during the epoch of reionization, and in 2017 a coincident short GRB and gravitational wave signal from a binary neutron star merger. These discoveries leave fundamental unanswered questions including: Can GRBs be used as definitive cosmological probes? What are the progenitors of GRBs? Do binary Neutron star mergers create the majority of the trans-iron heavy elements? What do core collapse GRBs tell us about star formation? How are GRB jets launched? What are the physics of the GRB emission process? To address these and other questions requires new capabilities for future GRB missions. I will summarize the current status and required future mission capabilities.