Comments on: 'Little' Gamma Ray Bursts Really Do Exist

By: stephen farrugia

stephen farrugia — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:17:41 +0000

Anyone interested in a simple classical hypothetical mechanism for GRBs can send me an email at farrugia.stephen@gmail.com and I will send him/her a short paper

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:22:55 +0000

The paper referenced in the above article can be found at arXiv:0803.1821v2 authored by S Foley et al. The paper mentions observations of several Xray afterglows and a few optical & near-IR afterglows, one appearing in the galaxy cluster Abell 1651, but mentions no GRBs linked to individual galaxies. It is suggested that the faint GRBs may be located in intergalactic space between galaxies in clusters (how convenient). The authors also consider that some of these faint GRBs may be cloaked by dense clouds of gas & dust, thus negating their claim of these being intrinsically 'faint' GRBs. Overall, their argument for a new class of faint GRBs seems rather premature, IMHO.

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:10:16 +0000

@Nigel, I'm all for enjoying a good mystery and for having some fun speculating on the nature of the universe, but I can also have a lot of fun interpreting "too much good data". BTW, exactly how much good data is too much?

By: Chuck Lam

Chuck Lam — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:49:04 +0000

Hmm . . . maybe GRBs are residual bursts of energy resulting from mini-big bang birthing sites of all matter we see. Maybe the classic 'big bang' isn't so big after all and is still in progress. GRBs could simply be a signature of new matter violently exploding into existance.

By: Nigel

Nigel — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 10:16:47 +0000

Ok John, in the spirit of enjoying a good mystery (and before too much data constrains our speculation), I like the idea of quark stars settling slowly to some limiting and critical explosion point, where the basic components of matter (some fundamental ultimatonic Planck-scale oscillator) are brought [almost] into contact. The mother of all exclusion principles then kicks in, and the [fully] degenerate matter in this dark island (i.e. not black hole) is [fully] unzipped.

The measurable tail end of this event would be a squirting of E.M. (gamma, x), but most of the commotion would be among the pre-photonic ultimatonic dark matter particle… our Planck-scale oscillator.

Great fun, until constrained by too much good data.

By: john

john — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:36:50 +0000

Let us enjoy this mystery and we will find out something new.

By: Ian O'Neill

Ian O'Neill — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:15:05 +0000

Little Gamma-Ray Bursts? Can I call them Gemma-Ray Bursts? Sounds cuter

By: Jon Hanford

Jon Hanford — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:00:25 +0000

I'm curious as to whether these faint GRBs are intrinsically low luminosity events or if their faintness may be ascribed to a 'beaming effect' where the GRB jets are not precisely aimed at the Earth? Also, have any of these events been traced directly to a galaxy in a nearby galaxy cluster, and if so, have any been detected in any other wavelengths. While these events may be detected near the supergalactic plane, might this not be due to a selection effect of the observations themselves. In what types of galaxies are these events observed. While I haven't read the published paper, it seems the press release is short on details and I would be cautious about ascribing the origins of these events until more data is available.

By: Don Alexander

Don Alexander — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:52:53 +0000

Jeez, they actually made a press release out of this? I didn't find their results very conclusive… Also, their paper is riddled with small errors.