Photospheric Emission in Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract

A major breakthrough in our understanding of gamma-ray bursts (GRB) prompt emission physics occurred in the last few years, with the realization that a thermal component accompanies the over-all non-thermal prompt spectra. This thermal part is important by itself, as it provides direct probe of the physics in the innermost outflow regions. It further has an indirect importance, as a source of seed photons for inverse-Compton scattering, thereby it contributes to the non-thermal part as well. In this short review, we highlight some key recent developments. Observationally, although so far it was clearly identified only in a minority of bursts, there are indirect evidence that thermal component exists in a very large fraction of GRBs, possibly close to 100%. Theoretically, the existence of thermal component have a large number of implications as a probe of underlying GRB physics. Some surprising implications include its use as a probe of the jet dynamics, geometry and magnetization.

This is an invited review article for the 14th Marcel Grossmann Meeting held in Rome, Italy (July 2015). To be published in International Journal of Modern Physics D