The DOI matches its Crossref record; 14 of the 14 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Polarization of the prompt γ-ray emission from the γ-ray burst of 6 December 2002
Open accessAbstract
Observations of the afterglows of γ-ray bursts (GRBs) have revealed that they lie at cosmological distances, and so correspond to the release of an enormous amount of energy. The nature of the central engine that powers these events and the prompt γ-ray emission mechanism itself remain enigmatic because, once a relativistic fireball is created, the physics of the afterglow is insensitive to the nature of the progenitor. Here we report the discovery of linear polarization in the prompt γ-ray emission from GRB021206, which indicates that it is synchrotron emission from relativistic electrons in a strong magnetic field. The polarization is at the theoretical maximum, which requires a uniform, large-scale magnetic field over the γ-ray emission region. A large-scale magnetic field constrains possible progenitors to those either having or producing organized fields. We suggest that the large magnetic energy densities in the progenitor environment (comparable to the kinetic energy densities of the fireball), combined with the large-scale structure of the field, indicate that magnetic fields drive the GRB explosion.
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Cites
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Rees, M. J., & Meszaros, P. (1994) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/187446 · Cited by 1,272
Millisecond pulsars with extremely strong magnetic fields as a cosmological source of γ-ray bursts
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Unsteady outflow models for cosmological gamma-ray burstsPreprint
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Poynting Jets from Black Holes and Cosmological Gamma-Ray Bursts
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Cited by
Modern Tests of Lorentz Invariance
Mattingly, D. (2005) · Living Reviews in Relativity · doi:10.12942/lrr-2005-5 · Cited by 1,061
The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets
Kumar, P., & Zhang, B. (2015) · Physics Reports · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2014.09.008 · Cited by 952
GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: PROGRESS, PROBLEMS & PROSPECTS
ZHANG, B., & MÉSZÁROS, P. (2004) · International Journal of Modern Physics A · doi:10.1142/s0217751x0401746x · Cited by 783
McKinney, J. C. (2006) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10256.x · Cited by 599
Zhang, B., Kobayashi, S., & Meszaros, P. (2003) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1086/377363 · Cited by 301
Metadata
- Authors
- Coburn, W., & Boggs, S. E.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2003-05
- Volume
- 423
- Issue
- 6938
- Pages
- 415-417
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W1544875189
- Cited by
- 356
- References
- 14
- FWCI
- 29.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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