Abstract
Since the launch of the highly successful and ongoing Swift mission, the field of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has undergone a revolution. The arcsecond GRB localizations available within just a few minutes of the GRB alert has signified the continual sampling of the GRB evolution through the prompt to afterglow phases revealing unexpected flaring and plateau phases, the first detection of a kilonova coincident with a short GRB, and the identification of samples of low-luminosity, ultra-long and highly dust-extinguished GRBs. The increased numbers of GRB afterglows, GRB-supernova detections, redshifts and host galaxy associations has greatly improved our understanding of what produces and powers these immense, cosmological explosions. Nevertheless, more high-quality data often also reveal greater complexity. In this review, I summarize some of the milestones made in GRB research during the Swift era, and how previous widely accepted theoretical models have had to adapt to accommodate the new wealth of observational data.
Highlights
During the first couple of decades after the first reported detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) by the USA military Vela satellites [1], the origin of these vast explosions perplexed theoreticians and observers alike
Theories ranged from nearby white dwarfs to extraterrestrial activity, with many finding it inconceivable that such explosions could arise from extragalactic environments, given that the implied isotropicequivalent energies would reach up to a few tenths of a solar mass, all released in just a few tens of seconds
This is exemplified by the population of short GRBs with extended emission, which are characterized by an initial short, spectrally hard γ -ray pulse followed by much dimmer and softer emission lasting for tens of seconds [21]
Summary
During the first couple of decades after the first reported detection of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) by the USA military Vela satellites [1], the origin of these vast explosions perplexed theoreticians and observers alike. Its very rapid slewing mechanism has drastically increased the detection rate of GRB afterglows, and decreased the typical delay times between the high energy prompt emission and longer wavelength afterglow emission from hours to minutes These data have opened up a new parameter space, and with that there have been many surprises from the perspective of predictions that turned out to be unfounded, and newly observed features that were unexpected based on standard theoretical models. These include very variable X-ray afterglow light curves, long-lived afterglow plateaus, new populations of intrinsically low-luminosity and heavily dust extinguished GRBs, and a subsequent significant increase in the variation in host galaxy properties.
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