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Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) comprise short, bright, energetic flashes of emission from extragalactic sources followed by a longer afterglow phase of decreased brightness. Recent discoveries of very high energy (VHE, ≳100 GeV) afterglow emission from GRB 180720B and GRB 190829A by the High Energy Stereoscopic System have raised questions regarding the emission mechanism responsible. We interpret this observed late-time emission to be the result of inverse Compton emission of ultrarelativistic electrons in the GRB blast wave in an external radiation field, i.e. external Compton (EC), considering both the wind and interstellar medium scenarios. We present predictions of multiwavelength light curves and energy spectra, ranging from optical to VHE, and include the synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) radiation mechanisms as well. We corrected the EC and SSC models for the gamma-ray attenuation by absorption of photons through their interaction with the extragalactic background light. We compared our results to multiwavelength data and found that EC gives a satisfactory fit for a given set of fixed model parameters for GRB 180720B, whereas SSC results in a better fit for GRB 190829A. For both GRBs, a wind environment is preferred over constant-density interstellar medium, and the cosmic microwave background as the external radiation field. However, with more data and an effective optimization tool we can find a more robust fit of the model, implying better constraints on the GRB environment and the particle energy requirements for the emission observed at late times. This has consequences for future observations of GRBs at these extreme energies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the phenomena of rapid energy release of enormous power associated with the collapse or merging of stars. As a result of internal processes, populations of nonthermal accelerated particles radiating in a wide energy range are formed in them. A number of observations have shown that photons with energies up to tens of TeV are detected from some GRBs. However, due to the great energy losses of radiating particles, the explanation of this high-energy radiation in terms of standard radiation mechanisms runs into great difficulties. In this paper, based on the model of adiabatic expansion for the GRB afterglow phase, we investigate the influence of magnetic inhomogeneities on the spectra within the electron and proton synchrotron radiation mechanism by taking into account the Compton scattering of synchrotron photons. We show that the magnetic inhomogeneity effect can increase the maximum energies of the synchrotron radiation from electrons and protons several fold without affecting the maximum energies of the Compton photons being produced in the Klein–Nishina regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetar giant flares (MGFs) have been long proposed to contribute at least a subsample of the observed short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The recent discovery of the short GRB 200415A in the nearby galaxy NGC 253 established a textbook-version connection between these two phenomena. Unlike previous observations of the Galactic MGFs, the unsaturated instrument spectra of GRB 200415A provide for the first time an opportunity to test the theoretical models with the observed γ-ray photons. This paper proposed a new readily fit-able model for the MGFs, which invokes an expanding fireball Comptonized by the relativistic magnetar wind at photosphere radius. In this model, a large amount of energy is released from the magnetar crust due to the magnetic reconnection or the starquakes of the star surface and is injected into confined field lines, forming a trapped fireball bubble. After breaking through the shackles and expanding to the photospheric radius, the thermal photons of the fireball are eventually Comptonized by the relativistic e ± pairs in the magnetar wind region, which produces additional higher-energy gamma-ray emission. The model predicts a modified thermal-like spectrum characterized by a low-energy component in the Rayleigh-Jeans regime, a smooth component affected by coherent Compton scattering in the intermediate energy range, and a high-energy tail due to the inverse Compton process. By performing a Monte-Carlo fit to the observational spectra of GRB 200415A, we found that the observation of the burst is entirely consistent with our model predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blazars whose synchrotron spectral energy distribution (SED) peaks at X-ray energies need to accelerate electrons to energies in the >100 GeV range in relativistic plasma jets at distances of parsecs from the central engine. Compton scattering by the same electrons can explain high luminosities at very high photon energies (>100 GeV) from the same objects. Turbulence combined with a standing conical shock can accomplish this. Such a scenario can also qualitatively explain the level and variability of linear polarization observed at optical frequencies in these objects. Multi-wavelength polarization measurements, including those at X-ray energies by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), find that the degree of polarization is several times higher at X-ray than at optical wavelengths, in general agreement with the turbulence-plus-shock picture. Some detailed properties of the observed polarization can be naturally explained by this scenario, while others pose challenges that may require modifications to the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CZTI (Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager) onboard AstroSat is a high energy coded mask imager and spectrometer in the energy range of 20–100 keV. Above 100 keV, the dominance of Compton scattering cross-section in CZTI results in a significant number of 2-pixel Compton events and these have been successfully utilized for polarization analysis of Crab pulsar and nebula (and transients like Gamma-ray bursts) in 100–380 keV. These 2-pixel Compton events can also be used to extend the spectroscopic energy range of CZTI up to 380 keV for bright sources. However, unlike the spectroscopy in primary energy range, where simultaneous background measurement is available from masked pixels, Compton spectroscopy requires blank sky observation for background measurement. Background subtraction, in this case, is non-trivial because of the presence of both short-term and long-term temporal variations in the data, which depend on multiple factors like earth rotation and the effect of South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) regions etc. We have developed a methodology of background selection and subtraction that takes into account for these effects. Here, we describe these background selection and subtraction techniques and validate them using spectroscopy of Crab in the extended energy range of 30–380 keV region, and compare the obtained spectral parameters with the INTEGRAL results. This new capability allows for the extension of the energy range of AstroSat spectroscopy and will also enable the simultaneous spectropolarimetric study of other bright sources like Cygnus X-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a numerical model for calculation of spectra of synchrotron-self-Compton radiation sources, e.g., gamma-ray bursts and TeV blazars. The model implements sequential allowance of the Compton scattering and two-photon production of electron-positron pairs using precise quantum-electrodynamic expressions for the corresponding differential equations. The previously unknown phenomena revealed by using the model are discussed, and an example of modeling the actual spectrum observed in the afterglow of the GRB 190114C gamma-ray burst is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]