1. Evidence of mini-jet emission in a large emission zone from a magnetically-dominated gamma-ray burst jet
- Author
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Yi, S. -X., Wang, C. -W., Shao, X. -Y., Moradi, R., Gao, H., Zhang, B., Xiong, S. -L., Zhang, S. -N., Tan, W. -J., Liu, J. -C., Xue, W. -C., Zhang, Y. -Q., Zheng, C., Wang, Y., Zhang, P., An, Z. -H., Cai, C., Feng, P. -Y., Gong, K., Guo, D. -Y., Huang, Y., Li, B., Li, X. -B., Li, X. -Q., Liu, X. -J., Liu, Y. -Q., Ma, X., Peng, W. -X., Qiao, R., Song, L. -M., Wang, J., Wang, P., Wen, X. -Y., Xiao, S., Xu, Y. -B., Yang, S., Yi, Q. -B., Zhang, D. -L., Zhang, F., Zhang, H. -M., Zhang, J. -P., Zhang, Z., Zhao, X. -Y., Zhao, Y., and Zheng, S. -J.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena - Abstract
The second brightest GRB in history, GRB230307A provides an ideal laboratory to study the details of GRB prompt emission thanks to its extraordinarily high photon statistics and its single broad pulse overall shape characterized by an energy-dependent fast-rise-exponential-decay (FRED) profile. Here we demonstrate that its broad pulse is composed of many rapidly variable short pulses, rather than being the superposition of many short pulses on top of a slow component. Such a feature is consistent with the picture of many mini-jets due to local magnetic reconnection events in a large emission zone far from the GRB central engine, as envisaged in the internal-collision-induced magnetic reconnection and turbulence (ICMART) model, but raises a great challenge to the internal shock models that attribute all variability components to collisions among different shells. Since relativistic mini-jets demand strong magnetization in the outflow, this work provides strong evidence for a Poynting-flux-dominated jet composition of this bright GRB., Comment: 7 pages and 2 figures in the main text. 27 pages and 9 figures in total
- Published
- 2023