A brief but bright flash of optical radiation has been captured only 30 seconds after the onset of a gamma-ray burst. Produced in the interior of the shocked relativistic jet that powered the burst, the optical flash reveals the jet to be narrow and magnetized.
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References
Akerlof, C. et al. Observation of contemporaneous optical radiation from a γ-ray burst. Nature 398, 400–402 (1999). This paper reports the first detection of bright optical radiation during the prompt emission of a GRB.
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Mészáros, P. & Rees, M. J. Optical and long-wavelength afterglow from gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 476, 232–237 (1997). This paper contains the prediction of the optical emission from the reverse shock in the GRB jet.
Gao, H. & Mészáros, P. Reverse shock emission in gamma-ray bursts revisited. Adv. Astron. 2015, 192383 (2015). This review article summarizes the standard and extended models of the reverse shock in GRB jets, and the observations.
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This is a summary of: Oganesyan, G. et al. Exceptionally bright optical emission from a rare and distant gamma-ray burst. Nat. Astron. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01972-4 (2023).
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An intense visible flash from a distant gamma-ray burst. Nat Astron 7, 769–770 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01985-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01985-z