The Collapsar and Supranova Models

Abstract

This rapporteur review summarizes results presented in Parallel Session GBT2 (Gamma Ray Burst Theory 2) on the Collapsar and Supranova Models held 25 July 2003 at the 10th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A central issue in GRB studies is the process whereby energy is released from the GRB engine. One scenario is the collapsar model, where the evolved stellar core promptly collapses to a black hole surrounded by a massive, intermittently-accreting torus of nuclear density material. A second scenario is the supranova model, where the first step of a two-step collapse process leaves behind a rapidly rotating neutron star stabilized by rotation, which later collapses to a black hole while making the GRB. In the supranova model, a powerful pulsar wind lasting days to weeks after the supernova makes distinctive signatures from the heating of the supernova remnant (SNR) shell, which should be discovered with Swift. This model also predicts nonstandard reddened excesses from the cooling SNR due to the range of delays between the two collapse events, contrary to observations of SN emissions from low redshift GRBs which favor the collapsar model. The observational basis for both models is critically reviewed. An outline of a GRB model is proposed where the second collapse takes place within minutes to hours after the primary SN event, during which time loss of centrifugal support along the rotation axis of the neutron star provides a relatively baryon-clean polar environment along which a newly formed, rapidly spinning black hole drives collimated baryon-dilute outflows.