Gamma Ray Bursts: open problems

Abstract

The internal/external synchrotron shock scenario has proved very successful in interpreting the key observations about gamma ray bursts. There still remains, however, some big uncertainties. The hottest issue concerns the nature of the progenitor, but there are also other problems concerning the global energetics, coupled with the issue of the degree of the collimation of the fireball. To be efficient, internal shocks within the relativistic wind must occur with large contrasts of their bulk Lorentz factors, and it is not clear yet the role of the Compton drag process in limiting the velocity differences. The fireball itself can be "hot" or "cold" according to what accelerates it to ultrarelativistic bulk speeds. In this respect the recent observations of a black body shape of the early phases of a few bursts shed new light on this issue. The most popular radiation process thought to explain the prompt emission is synchrotron, but it faces severe problems when comparing the expected spectrum with observations. Alternatives are called for. Emission features in the X-ray afterglow and absorption features in the prompt spectra are a powerful diagnostical tool. Besides shedding light on the nature of the progenitor, they can constrain the total energy release in a beaming-independent way.