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The collapse of massive stars have been used to explain many of the largest outbursts known to mankind, from supernovae to hypernovae to gamma-ray bursts. These explosions differ in their level of asymmetry and the spectral energy of the photons they emit. It is likely that such a wide range in the nature of these explosions requires more than one explosion mechanism to extract the gravitational potential energy released during the collapse. Three major classes of mechanisms have been proposed: neutrino-driven, magnetic-field driven, collapsar (black hole accretion disk) driven. This review discusses each mechanism in turn, discussing the current state-of-the-art calculations along with their observational predictions. We conclude with a summary of the current observational constraints on these models.

It is shown that the concept of a fireball with a definite filamentary structure naturally emerges from the analysis of the spectra of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). These results, made possible by the recently obtained analytic expressions of the equitemporal surfaces in the GRB afterglow, depend crucially on the single parameter ℛ describing the effective area of the fireball emitting the X-ray and gamma-ray radiation. The X-ray and gamma-ray components of the afterglow radiation are shown to have a thermal spectrum in the co-moving frame of the fireball and originate from a stable shock front described self-consistently by the Rankine–Hugoniot equations. Precise predictions are presented on a correlation between spectral changes and intensity variations in the prompt radiation verifiable, e.g., by the Swift and future missions. The highly variable optical and radio emission depends instead on the parameters of the surrounding medium. The GRB 991216 is used as a prototype for this model.

I have developed two-dimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) code. I have performed numerical simulations of collapsars using these codes and realistic progenitor models. In the GRMHD simulation, it is shown that a jet is launched from the center of the progenitor. We also performed two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations in the context of collapsar model to investigate the explosive nucleosynthesis happened there. It is found that the amount of ⁵⁶Ni is very sensitive to the energy deposition rate. This result means that the amount of synthesized ⁵⁶Ni can be little even if the total explosion energy is as large as 10⁵² erg. Thus, some GRBs can associate with faint supernovae. Thus we consider it is quite natural to detect no underlying supernova in some X-ray afterglows.

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 nonthermal 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 nonthermal 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 is indirect evidence that a thermal component exists in a very large fraction of GRBs, possibly close to 100%. Theoretically, the existence of a thermal component has 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.

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 nonthermal 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 nonthermal 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 is indirect evidence that a thermal component exists in a very large fraction of GRBs, possibly close to 100%. Theoretically, the existence of a thermal component has 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.

Long-duration GRBs are known to be associated with massive progenitor stars. This association has fundamental consequences on the dynamics of the GRB jet and its radiative properties. With the aid of state of the art numerical simulations we show that GRB jets associated with massive stars are very different from jets expanding in vacuum. We discuss the implications of this result on the radiative efficiency of long duration GRBs, on the associated radiation mechanisms, and on the variability of the prompt light curves.

The Swift satellite detects around 100 Gamma-Ray Bursts per year using its onboard Burst Alert Telescope, most of which are subsequently observed by Swift’s X-ray Telescope. These data reveal a wide variety of temporal variability of both the broadband X-ray flux and spectral shape. We discuss the similarities and differences in light curve shapes between long and short bursts and propose that internal, central-engine related processes rather than the environment primarily determines the form of the light curve in both GRB types.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which have been observed up to redshifts z ≈ 9.5 can be good probes of the early universe and have the potential of testing cosmological models. The analysis by Dainotti of GRB Swift afterglow lightcurves with known redshifts and definite X-ray plateau shows an anti-correlation between the rest frame time when the plateau ends (the plateau end time) and the calculated luminosity at that time (or approximately an anti-correlation between plateau duration and luminosity). We present here an update of this correlation with a larger data sample of 101 GRBs with good lightcurves. Since some of this correlation could result from the redshift dependences of these intrinsic parameters, namely their cosmological evolution we use the Efron-Petrosian method to reveal the intrinsic nature of this correlation. We find that a substantial part of the correlation is intrinsic and describe how we recover it and how this can be used to constrain physical models of the plateau emission, whose origin is still unknown. The present result could help clarifing the debated issue about the nature of the plateau emission. This result is very important also for cosmological implications, because in literature so far GRB correlations are not corrected for redshift evolution and selection biases. Therefore we are not aware of their intrinsic slopes and consequently how far the use of the observed correlations can influence the derived ‘best’ cosmological settings. Therefore, we conclude that any approach that involves cosmology should take into consideration only intrinsic correlations not the observed ones.