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Department of Physics525 Northwestern Avenue
West Lafayette, IN
47907-2036
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Telephone:
(765) 494-2970
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(765) 494-0706
Andrei Beloborodov
Columbia University
"Mechanism of gamma-ray bursts"
Thursday March 21, 2013
4:00pm phys203
Refreshments are served at 3:30 p.m. in Physics room 242
Cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most extreme variety of astrophysical explosions, with the equivalent isotropic energy exceeding the rest-mass energy of the sun. Most of the burst energy is observed in MeV gamma-rays, with a typical duration of 1-10 s. The burst is emitted by a dense, ultra-relativistic jet from a short-lived compact engine, likely a spinning and accreting (just-born) black hole, or a neutron star. This talk will discuss the explosion mechanism and how the gamma-rays are produced. GRB explosions are also expected to emit neutrinos in three energy bands; new prospects for detection by IceCube will be discussed.