* Astronomy

Title: On The Origin Of The Highest Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts
Authors: Krzysztof Belczynski, Daniel E. Holz, Chris L. Fryer, Edo Berger, Dieter H. Hartmann, Brian O'Shea
(Version v2)

GRB 080913 and GRB 090423 are the most distant gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) known to-date, with spectroscopically determined redshifts of z = 6.7 and z = 8.1, respectively. The detection of bursts at this early epoch of the Universe significantly constrains the nature of GRBs and their progenitors. We perform population synthesis studies of the formation and evolution of early stars, and calculate the resulting formation rates of short and long-duration GRBs at high redshift. The peak of the GRB rate from Population II stars occurs at z ~ 7 for a model with efficient/fast mixing of metals, while it is found at z ~ 3 for an inefficient/slow metallicity evolution model. We show that in the redshift range z = 6--10 essentially all GRBs originate from Population II stars, regardless of metallicity evolution model. These stars (having small, but non-zero metallicity) are the most likely progenitors for both long GRBs (collapsars) and short GRBs (NS-NS or BH-NS mergers) at this epoch. Although the predicted intrinsic rates of long and short GRBs are similar at these high redshifts, observational selection effects lead to higher (factor of ~ 10) observed rates for long GRBs. We conclude that the two recently observed high-z GRB events are most likely long GRBs originating from Population II collapsars.

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New Light Shed On 'Dark' Gamma-ray Bursts
Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's biggest explosions, capable of producing so much light that ground-based telescopes easily detect it billions of light-years away. Yet, for more than a decade, astronomers have puzzled over the nature of so-called dark bursts, which produce gamma rays and X-rays but little or no visible light. They make up roughly half of the bursts detected by NASA's Swift satellite since its 2004 launch.

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Title: QCD against black holes?
Authors: Ilya I. Royzen

Along with compacting baryon (neutron) spacing, two very important factors come into play at once: the lack of self-stabilisation within a compact neutron star (NS) associated with possible black hole (BH) horizon appearance and the phase transition - colour deconfinement and QCD-vacuum reconstruction - within the nuclear matter. That is why both phenomena should be taken into account side by side, as the gravitational collapse is considered. Since, under the above transition, the hadronic-phase vacuum (filled up with gluon and chiral q\bar q-condensates) turns into the "empty" (perturbation) subhadronic-phase one and, thus, the corresponding (very high) pressure falls down rather abruptly, the formerly cold (degenerated) nuclear medium starts to implode into the new vacuum. If the mass of a star is sufficiently large, then this implosion produces an enormous heating, which stops only after quark-gluon plasma of a temperature about 100 MeV (or even higher) is formed to withstand the gravitational compression (whereas the highest temperatures of supernovae bursts are, at least, one order lower). As a consequence, a "burning wall" must be, most probably, erected on the way of further collapsing the matter towards a black hole formation.

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Title: A Comparison of the Afterglows of Short- and Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
Authors: M. Nysewander, A.S. Fruchter, A. Pe'er
(Version v2)

We present a comparative study of the observed properties of the optical and X-ray afterglows of short- and long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Using a large sample of 37 short and 421 long GRBs, we find a strong correlation between the afterglow brightness measured after 11 hours and the observed fluence of the prompt emission. Both the optical (R band) and X-ray flux densities (F_R and F_X) scale with the gamma-ray fluence, F_gamma. For bursts with a known redshift, a tight correlation exists between the afterglow flux densities at 11 hours (rest-frame) and the total isotropic gamma-ray energy, Egi: F_{R,X} ~ Egi^{alpha}, with alpha ~ 1. The constant of proportionality is nearly identical for long and short bursts, when Egi is obtained from the Swift data. Additionally, we find that for short busts with F_gamma >10^{-7} erg cm^{-2}, optical afterglows are nearly always detected by reasonably deep early observations. Finally, we show that the ratio F_R/F_X has very similar values for short and long bursts. These results are difficult to explain in the framework of the standard scenario, since they require that either (1) the number density of the surrounding medium of short bursts is typically comparable to, or even larger than the number density of long bursts; (2) short bursts explode into a density profile, n(r)\alpha r^{-2} or (3) the prompt gamma-ray fluence depends on the density of the external medium. We therefore find it likely that either basic assumptions on the properties of the circumburst environment of short GRBs or else the standard models of GRB emission must be re-examined. We believe that the most likely solution is that the ambient density surrounding typical short bursts is higher than has generally been expected: a typical value of ~1 per cm^{-3} is indicated.

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