Optical Flash of GRB 990123: Constraints on the Physical Parameters of the Reverse Shock

The optical flash accompanying GRB 990123 is believed to be powered by the reverse shock of a thin shell. With the best-fit physical parameters for GRB 990123 and the assumption that the parameters in the optical flash are the same as in the afterglow, we show that: 1) the shell is thick rather than thin, and we have provided the light curve for the thick shell case which coincides with the observation; 2) the theoretical peak flux of the optical flash accounts for only 3×10-4 of the observed. In order to remove this discrepancy, the physical parameters, the electron energy and magnetic ratios, εe and εB, should be 0.61 and 0.39, which are very different from their values for the late afterglow.

Studying the Fermi GeV light curve of Vela with the two-pole caustic model

An observation of the Vela pulsar with the Fermi Large Area Telescope has been recently reported and the GeV light curve shows two main peaks with a phase separation of ～0.43. We study the GeV light curve using the two-pole caustic model in which the peaks of the light curves of the pulsar result from caustic effects. The results show that the two-pole caustic model can reproduce the observed emission pattern of the two peaks and the bridge emission between them well, but overestimates the flux outside the two peaks. After taking account of the pair production effect on the azimuthal angle, we find that the resulting light curve is more consistent with the observation. We excluded the emissions from the field lines for which the distance from the null charge surface, where the pairs can be significantly produced, is larger than the radius of the light cylinder.

Pulsed γ-ray properties of Crab pulsar in a retarded dipole with a current-induced magnetic field

Motivated by the Fermi observations of some γ-ray pulsars in which the phases of radio and γ-ray peaks are almost the same, we investigate the outer gap model in a retarded dipole with a current-induced magnetic field and apply it to explain pulsed γ-ray properties of the Crab pulsar. Our results show that the observed γ-ray energy-dependent light curves, which almost align with the radio light curve and phase averaged spectrum for the Crab pulsar, are reproduced well.

The Relationship between the Rise Width and the Full Width of γ-ray Burst Pulses and Its Implications

We investigate the relationship between the rise width and the full width of gamma-ray burst pulses. Theoretical analysis shows that either width is proportional to Г^-2△τθ,FWHMRc/c（Г the Lorentz factor of the bulk motion, △τθ,FWHM a local pulse＇s width, Rc the radius of fireballs and c the velocity of light）. We study the relationship for four samples of observed pulses. We find： （1） merely the curvature effect could reproduce the relationship between the rise and full widths with the same slope as derived from the model of Qin et al.; （2） gamma-ray burst pulses, selected from both the short and long GRBs, follow the same sequence in the rise width vs. full width diagram, with the shorter pulses at one end; （3） all GRBs may intrinsically result from local Gaussian pulses. These features place constraints on the physical mechanism（s） for producing long and short GRBs.