TITLE:
The Role of Magnetic Fields in Gamma-Ray Bursts from SNeII
AUTHORS:
Legesse Wetro Kebede
KEYWORDS:
Pulsars; Pulsar Dynamics; Pulsar Magnetic Fields; Type II Supernova Explosions; GRBs from SNe II
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Vol.3 No.4,
December
20,
2013
ABSTRACT: Data from a recently discovered long Gamma Ray Burst
(GRB 090102) by NASA’s Swift satellite revealed that such GRBs may not be fireballs as
usually presumed, but instead they are powered and collimated by organized
strong magnetic fields (≧ 1015 G) generated by the
compact object, a neutron star (NS) created at the core of the associated supernova
explosion (SNeII). A mechanism for the generation of such strong surface
magnetic fields where power NSs result from the deaths of massive progenitor
stars is described based on a non-conventional model for pulsar magnetic
fields, namely, spinning polarization charge that I recently
developed in [1]. I show that this could give rise to scenarios involving long
GRB events as the one captured by the Swift satellite during GRB 090102 in
January 2, 2009. The model predicts that the magnetic moment of a NS has a dynamical
feature which makes it different from that of a simple pulsar. I show this
could have serious consequences on the statistics of observing long GRBs and
also help explain such scenarios as the steep decline in the photon count-rate
and the subsequent shutoff in the Swift/XRT X-ray data from GRB 070110.