GRB and gravitational waves

Stef
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Topic 195616

Do gamma-ray bursts cause gravitational waves? And if so, has there been attempts to detect them?
Though, it might be kind of difficult because they wouldn't have a continuous wave.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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GRB and gravitational waves

Quote:
Do gamma-ray bursts cause gravitational waves? And if so, has there been attempts to detect them?
Though, it might be kind of difficult because they wouldn't have a continuous wave.


Yep, yep and yep. In the sense that exploding things ( eg. the highly relativistic fireballs of supernovae, especially if asymmetric ) will cause both. There are other groups ( not the Continuous Wave subgroup of LIGO that E@H operates under ) which study, and attempt to correlate with other detection modes, the 'once off' events. The LIGO interferometers have a channel for GRB alerts from a ground and satellite based system to 'mark the card' of data received around the time of such events.

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Matt Giwer
Matt Giwer
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RE: Do gamma-ray bursts

Quote:
Do gamma-ray bursts cause gravitational waves? And if so, has there been attempts to detect them?
Though, it might be kind of difficult because they wouldn't have a continuous wave.

The bursts themselves? Technically, no. Rather the current best guess on what causes the bursts would also cause gravitational waves. Anything that causes a change in gravity as seen by a fixed observer should produce a gravity wave. A lot of matter turning into energy would be a change in gravity. The energy being carried away as gamma rays means a lot of mass was lost. Therefore a wave should be generated.

Although it tends to journalism major science sciencedaily.com does a fairly good job. newscientist.com is on the unreliable side. sciencemag.org of the AAAS is probably the best. sciam.com is touchy-feely. All my opinion of course. My point is there are sufficient serious sources on the web to get a lot of background and stay up to date if you want to spend the time. Even if you are science averse if you read enough it eventually starts to make sense.

Stef
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Thanks for the

Thanks for the clarification.
Of course i meant the source of the GRB, not the GRB itself.
The other problem might be, that the GRB we see is the jet, which radiates in the rotational axis, so most part of the gravitational wave would travel in a direction 90° to the jet. But thats just my intuitive guess.

tullio
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I get also some articles from

I get also some articles from "Nature" and "Nature Physics" although I am not a paying subscriber but only a registered user. They are very good.
Tullio

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
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RE: Thanks for the

Quote:
Thanks for the clarification.
Of course i meant the source of the GRB, not the GRB itself.
The other problem might be, that the GRB we see is the jet, which radiates in the rotational axis, so most part of the gravitational wave would travel in a direction 90° to the jet. But thats just my intuitive guess.


From my memory GRB's are, in theory, attributed to two mechanisms. The first is the supernova where the violence of that sprays pretty well every type of radiation you can think of. The second is the last moment(s) of the merger of highly relativistic closely rotating supermassive bodies, where the gammas originate from a toroidal shaped smear of matter. With both, the numbers are quite staggering for both short timelines and the unbelievable power output. I can't remember the exact figure but it's something like if one cracked off within 50 light years of us we'd all be dead quick slick - even stripping Earth's atmosphere clean off.

Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Matt Giwer
Matt Giwer
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Credit: 6891649
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RE: Thanks for the

Quote:
Thanks for the clarification.
Of course i meant the source of the GRB, not the GRB itself.

Of course but as you ask a "technical" question the answer should be technically correct else one can try to reason further from a not really correct idea.

Quote:
The other problem might be, that the GRB we see is the jet, which radiates in the rotational axis, so most part of the gravitational wave would travel in a direction 90° to the jet. But thats just my intuitive guess.

Directional gravitational waves? I don't think the theory is ready to address tractor beams ... ;) But there is a difference between the result, gamma rays, and the cause which is in the GKW (god knows what) category despite a couple or three guesses based upon the directionality. But their cause is a loss of mass which is not a directional phenomenon.

You are in space and feel the pull of an asteroid. Magic occurs and it all converts to gamma rays flying away in "polar" directions. The matter disappears, the gravity disappears, there is a wave. No matter what your position in relation to that asteroid the matter still disappears and you still experience the change in gravity.

Matt Giwer
Matt Giwer
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RE: I get also some

Quote:
I get also some articles from "Nature" and "Nature Physics" although I am not a paying subscriber but only a registered user. They are very good.
Tullio

Agreed. I knew there was one I was forgetting -- not that I have the time to read all of them.

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