• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.39.1-39.1
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• 2018

Although it is agreed that the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) invoke highly relativistic jets with bulk Lorentz factors of a few hundreds, the exact physical mechanism producing such powerful gamma-rays still remains debated. Three outstanding and important questions in the field concern (1) the composition of GRB jets (i.e., matter-dominated vs Poynting-flux-dominated), (2) the involved radiative process responsible for the observed gamma-rays (i.e., synchrotron mechanism vs photospheric radiation), and (3) the distance of the emitting region from the central engine where the prompt gamma-rays are released (i.e., ~10^12 cm vs 10^14 cm vs 10^16 cm). I will present recent important breakthroughs that we have made, which answer these three questions.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2002

Recently, one interesting possibility is proposed that a magnetar can be a progenitor of short and hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). If this is true, one may expect that the short and hard GRBs, at least some of GRBs in this class, are distributed in the Euclidean space and that the angular position of these GRBs is correlated with galaxy clusters. Even though it is reported that the correlation is statistically marginal, the observed value of < $V/V_{max}$ > deviates from the Euclidean value. The latter fact is often used as evidence against a local extragalactic origin for short GRB class. We demonstrate that GRB sample of which the value of < $V/V_{max}$ > deviates from the Euclidean value can be spatially confined within the low value of z. We select very short bursts (TgO < 0.3 sec) from the BATSE 4B catalog. The value of < $V/V_{max}$ > of the short bursts is 0.4459. Considering a conic-beam and a cylindrical beam for the luminosity function, we deduce the corresponding spatial distribution of the GRB sources. We also calculate the fraction of bursts whose redshifts are larger than a certain redshift z', i.e. f>z'. We find that GRBs may be distributed near to us, despite the non-Euclidean value of < $V/V_{max}$ >. A broad and uniform beam pattern seems compatible with the magnetar model in that the magnetar model requires a small $z_{max}$.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.113-116
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• 2017

A significant number of the parameters of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) and its host galaxy are calculated from the afterglow. There are various methods obtaining extinction values for the necessary correction for galactic foreground. These are: galaxy counts, from HI 21 cm surveys, from spectroscopic measurements and colors of nearby Galactic stars, or using extinction maps calculated from infrared surveys towards the GRB. We demonstrate that AKARI Far-Infrared Surveyor sky surface brightness maps are useful uncovering the fine structure of the galactic foreground of GRBs. Galactic cirrus structures of a number of GRBs are calculated with a 2 arcminute resolution, and the results are compared to that of other methods.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.109-117
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• 2016

We explain the results of Yu et al. (2015b) of the novel sharpness angle measurement to a large number of spectra obtained from the Fermi gamma-ray burst monitor. The sharpness angle is compared to the values obtained from various representative emission models: blackbody, single-electron synchrotron, synchrotron emission from a Maxwellian or power-law electron distribution. It is found that more than 91% of the high temporally and spectrally resolved spectra are inconsistent with any kind of optically thin synchrotron emission model alone. It is also found that the limiting case, a single temperature Maxwellian synchrotron function, can only contribute up to 58⁺²³₋₁₈% of the peak flux. These results show that even the sharpest but non-realistic case, the single-electron synchrotron function, cannot explain a large fraction of the observed spectra. Since any combination of physically possible synchrotron spectra added together will always further broaden the spectrum, emission mechanisms other than optically thin synchrotron radiation are likely required in a full explanation of the spectral peaks or breaks of the GRB prompt emission phase.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.377-384
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• 2005

Since gamma-ray bursts(GRBs) have been first known to science societites in 1973, many scientists are involved in their studies. Observations of GRB afterglows provide us with much information on the environment in which the observed GRBs are born. Study of GRB afterglows deals with longer timescale emissions in lower energy bands (e.g., months or even up to years) than prompt emissions in gamma-rays. Not all the bursts accompany afterglows in whole ranges of waveleogths. It has been suggested as a reason for that, for instance, that radio and/or X-ray afterglows are not recorded mainly due to lower sensitivity of detectors, and optical afterglows due to extinctions in intergalactic media or self-extinctions within a host galaxy itself. Based on the idea that these facts may also provide information on the GRE environment, we analyze statistical properties of GRB afterglows. We first select samples of the redshift-known GRBs according to the wavelength of afterglow they accompanied. We then compare their distributious as a function of redshift, using statistical methods. As a results, we find that the distribution of the GRBs with X-ray afterglows is consistent with that of the GRBs with optical afterglows. We, therefore, conclude that the lower detection rate of optical afterglows is not due to extinctions in intergalactic media.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.167-176
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• 2006

We investigate the correlation between the peak energy and the burst duration using available long GRB data with known redshift, whose circumburst medium type has been suggested via afterglow light curve modeling. We find that the peak energy and the burst duration of the observed GRBs are correlated both in the observer frame and in the GRB rest frame. For our total sample we obtain, for instance, the Spearman rank-order correlation values ${\sim}0.75\;and\;{\sim}0.65$ with the chance probabilities $P=1.0{\times}10^{-3}\;and\;P=6.0{\times}10^{-3}$ in the observer frame and in the GRB rest frame, respectively. We note that taking the effects of the expanding universe into account reduces the value a bit. We further attempt to separate our GRB sample into the 'ISM' GRBs and the 'WIND' GRBs according to environment models inferred from the afterglow light curves and apply statistical tests, as one may expect that clues on the progenitor of GRBs can be deduced directly from prompt emission properties other than from the ambient environment surrounding GRBs. We find that two subsamples of GRBs show different correlation coefficients. That is, the Spearman rank-order correlation are ${\sim}0.65\;and\;{\sim}0.57$ for the 'ISM' GRBs and 'WIND' GRBs, respectively, after taking the effects of the expanding universe into account. It is not yet, however, statistically very much significant that the GRBS in two types of circumburst media show statistically characteristic behaviors, from which one may conclude that all the long bursts are not originated from a single progenitor population. A larger size of data is required to increase the statistical significance.