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Supervisors: Dr P.T. O'Brien, Dr R. Willingale, Dr. J. Osborne
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to be the signature of the death of a massive star and the birth of a black hole. They are now accepted to be extragalactic and hence their apparent brightness makes them the most powerful events in the Universe (after the big bang!). Follow-up observations have found X-ray, optical and radio emission (the afterglow) that starts bright and then fades rapidly.
At Leicester we study the multi-waveband nature of GRBs using a wide variety of satellite and ground-based observatories. In addition, we have a theoretical programme aimed at modelling the origin and evolution of GRBs. Current research at Leicester is aimed at understanding both the prompt emission from the burst and the longer-lived afterglow. This emission allows us to probe the innermost regions of the rapidly expanding fireball around the GRB and the nature of the relativistic jets launched along the black-hole rotation axis during the explosion. We also probe the link between supernovae and GRBs. Much of our work uses data from the Swift satellite for which we provided the X-ray camera.
Detailed information on Swift can be found on the web pages for the UK Swift Data Centre, which is based at Leicester, and can be found here. This includes an introduction to gamma-ray bursts here and a summary of some of our research here
Information on Leicester's hardware role in the Swift GRB satellite mission can be found here.
Contact: Paul O'Brien (pto@star.le.ac.uk)
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Page maintained by Keith Sohl (kbs@star.le.ac.uk) |  |