Relativistic Plasma Physics. 8. Ultra-Relativistic Plasma and Gamma-Ray Bursts.

Abstract

Gamma-raybursts (GRBs) are the most explosive events after the big bang. For a few seconds a GRB be comes the brightest object in the Universe, overshining the rest of the Universe combined. Clearly this reflects extreme conditions that are fascinating and worth exploring. GRB observations were recently revolutionised by the discovery of the delayed X-ray emission, called ”afterglow”. These observations revealed that the deceleration of relativistically expanding fireballs causes GRBs. I discuss special relativistic effects that play an important role in the fireball model.