Abstract
The helium-merger gamma-ray burst progenitor is produced by the rapid accretion onto a compact remnant (neutron star or black hole) when it undergoes a common envelope inspiral with its companion's helium core. This merger phase produces a very distinct environment around these outbursts and recent observations suggest that, in some cases, we are detecting the signatures of the past merger in the GRB afterglow. These observations allow us, for the first time, to study the specific features of the helium merger progenitor. In this paper, we couple population synthesis calculations to our current understanding of gamma-ray burst engines and common envelope evolution to make observational predictions for the helium-merger gamma-ray burst population. Many mergers do not produce GRB outbursts and we discuss the implications of these mergers with the broader population of astrophysical transients.
Highlights
The helium-merger gamma-ray burst progenitor is produced by the rapid accretion onto a compact remnant when it undergoes a common envelope inspiral with its companion’s helium core
The black hole accretion disk gamma-ray burst (GRB) engine has become standard for long- and short-duration GRBs alike (Popham et al 1999)
The basic idea behind this model is that as the compact remnant spirals into its companion, the orbital energy lost both spins up the helium core and ejects the hydrogen envelope
Summary
The black hole accretion disk gamma-ray burst (GRB) engine has become standard for long- and short-duration GRBs alike (Popham et al 1999). Achieving the high angular momentum needed to produce a disk around the newly formed black hole has proved problematic and a number of progenitors have been invoked to provide these high angular momentum profiles (Fryer & Woosley 1998; Fryer et al 1999a; Yoon & Langer 2005; Woosley & Heger 2006; Belczynski et al 2007; Ivanova & Podsiadlowski 2003; Portegies-Zwart, Dewi, & Maccarone 2005; van den Heuvel & Yoon 2007; Fryer et al 2007a; Podsiadlowski et al 2010) One such model invokes the merger of a compact remnant with its companion. We conclude with a discussion of the potential observational outcomes of this black hole accretion disk progenitor
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