Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2008 APS April Meeting and HEDP/HEDLA Meeting
Volume 53, Number 5
Friday–Tuesday, April 11–15, 2008; St. Louis, Missouri
Session 17HE: Relativistic Plasmas and Gamma-Ray Bursts |
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Sponsoring Units: HEDP HEDLA Chair: Tomasz Plewa, Florida State University Room: Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront (formerly Adam's Mark Hotel), Promenade F |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 2:50PM - 3:15PM |
17HE.00001: Gamma-Ray Bursts from Massive Stars Invited Speaker: I will discuss the collapsar model for the production of cosmological gamma-ray bursts from the collapse and explosion of massive rotating stars. I will present numerical simulations of relativistic gas dynamics relevant for the propagation of hot plasma through the envelopes of stars and beyond. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:15PM - 3:40PM |
17HE.00002: Particle Acceleration at astrophysical shocks Invited Speaker: I will review the status of particle acceleration theory, concentrating on the connection between acceleration and magnetic field amplification in both non-relativistic and highly relativistic shocks. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:40PM - 4:00PM |
17HE.00003: BREAK
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:00PM - 4:25PM |
17HE.00004: Short Gamma-Ray Burst Models and Simulations Invited Speaker: While the sources of long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), at least in a number of cases, have been unambiguously identified as exploding massive stars, the origin of short GRBs is still much less certain, although a connection to compact object mergers, in particular neutron star and neutron star black hole binaries, seems very likely. What is the difference between short and long bursts? What are the possibilities to pin down the astrophysical objects that produce the short bursts? What is the status of numerical simulations, what can they tell us, and what are their limitations? The talk will address these and other questions and will show where contributions from other fields are needed for making progress. Hydrodynamic simulations of the final plunge that terminates the orbital evolution of compact binaries have made significant progress and now have begun to take into account general relativity, magnetic fields, and microphysical descriptions of dense neutron star matter. In particular the gravitational wave signal emitted from this phase and the subsequent ringdown contains very valuable information. In contrast, the following evolution of the merger remnant still poses major challenges for the modeling because of the long secular timescales, the potential relevance of different kinds of instabilities, the complexities of the neutrino transport, and the simultaneous presence and interaction of accretion and outflows on vastly varying scales. Modeling efforts were able to bring insight into selected aspects, but a consistent picture of the source that produces the ultrarelativistic GRB outflow has not been developed yet. [Preview Abstract] |
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 4:25PM - 4:50PM |
17HE.00005: Production of electron-positron pairs using ultra-intense lasers and potential applications Invited Speaker: When ultra-intense lasers interact with an over-dense plasma they convert a significant fraction of their energy into relativistic superthermal electrons. When such electrons interact with the nuclei of a high-Z target, electron-positron pairs can be copiously produced via the Trident and Bethe-Heitler processes. Numerical simulations have been performed by many groups, and a number of experiments have been attempted, to study the feasibility of these concepts. This talk will review the current status of laser pair production, plans for future experiments and explore the potential applications of such high-density positron sources, from laboratory astrophysics to exciting new technologies. [Preview Abstract] |
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