Iron line in the afterglow: a key to the progenitor

dc.creatorLazzati, Davide
dc.creatorGhisellini, Gabriele
dc.creatorCampana, Sergio
dc.date1999-06-16
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T02:32:03Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T02:32:03Z
dc.descriptionThe discovery of a powerful and transient iron line feature in the X-ray afterglow spectrum of GRB 970508 and GRB 970828, if confirmed, would be a major breakthrough for understanding the nature the progenitor of gamma-ray bursts. We show that a large mass of iron very close to the burster is necessary to produce the emission line. This in itself strongly limits the possible progenitor of the gamma-ray event, suggesting the former explosion of a supernova, as predicted in the Supranova model (Vietri & Stella 1998). The line emission process and the line intensity depend strongly on the age, density and temperature of the remnant. The simultaneous observation of the iron line and of a power-law optical afterglow lasted for one year strongly suggest that the burst emission is isotropic. Recent observations of GRB 990123 are also discussed.
dc.description8 pages, 1 postscript figure, proceedings of the workshop: "Gamma-Ray Bursts: the first three minutes", hald in Graftavallen (S), february 1999
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9906268
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9906268
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/14372
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleIron line in the afterglow: a key to the progenitor
dc.typetext

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