Trans‐Relativistic Blast Waves in Supernovae as Gamma‐Ray Burst Progenitors
Bibliographic record
Abstract
We investigate the acceleration of shock waves to relativistic velocities in the outer layers of exploding stars. By concentrating the energy of the explosion in the outermost ejecta, such trans-relativistic blast waves can serve as the progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs); in particular, the "baryon-loading" problem that plagues many models of GRBs is circumvented. Postshock acceleration is effective in boosting the kinetic energy in relativistic ejecta. We present physically motivated analytic expressions to describe trans-relativistic blast waves in supernovae, and we validate these expressions against numerical simulations of test problems. Investigating the effect of stellar structure on mass ejection, we find that relativistic ejecta are enhanced in more centrally condensed envelopes, e.g., for radiative envelopes, when the luminosity approaches the Eddington limit. Convenient formulae are presented with which to estimate the production of relativistic ejecta from a given progenitor. We apply our analytic and numerical methods to a model of SN 1998bw, finding significantly enhanced relativistic ejecta compared to previous studies. We propose that GRB 980425 is associated with SN 1998bw and may have resulted from an approximately spherical explosion producing ~10 -6 M ☉ of mildly relativistic ejecta with mean Lorentz factor ~ 2, which then interacted with a dense circumstellar wind with a mass-loss rate of approximately a few times 10 -4 M ☉ yr -1 . A highly asymmetric explosion is not required. An extreme model of "hypernova" explosions in massive stars is able to account for the energetics and relativistic ejecta velocities required by many of the observed cosmological GRBs. However, the most energetic bursts require asymmetric expulsion of ejecta, perhaps caused by rotationally flattened progenitors. We present simplified models and simulations of explosions resulting from accretion-induced collapse of white dwarfs and phase transitions of neutron stars. While we find increased energies in relativistic ejecta compared to previous studies, these explosions are unlikely to be observed at cosmological distances with current detectors, unless extreme explosion energies and asymmetries are invoked.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".