Gamma-ray Bursts: a Probe of Black Holes

Abstract

There is strong evidence for the existence of black holes(BHs) in some X-ray binaries and most galatic nuclei, based on different measuremental approaches, but black holes aren't finally identified for the lack of very firm observational evidence up to now. Because the direct evidence for BHs should come from determination of strong gravitational redshift, we hope an object can fall into the region near the BH horizon where radiation can be detected. Therefore the object must be compact stars as neutron stars(NSs), then the intense astrophysical processes will release very high energy radiation which is transient, fast-variant. These phenomena may point to gamma-ray bursts(GRBs) observed. And recent observations of iron lines suggest that afterglows of GRBs show the similar property in active galatic nuclei(AGNs), implying GRBs may originate from intense events related to black holes. In this letter, a model for GRBs and afterglows is proposed to obtain the range of gravitational redshifts($z_g$) of GRBs with known cosmological redshifts. Hence, we provide a new method that with a search for high-energy emission lines(X- or $\gamma$-rays) in GRBs, one can determine the gravitational redshift. We expect $z_g>0.5$ or even larger, so that we can rule out the possibility of other compact objects such as NSs, suggesting that the central progenitors of GRBs should be black holes.