July 18th

Bing Zhang - Gamma-ray burst models in the strongly magnetized regime

Title: Gamma-ray burst models in the strongly magnetized regime: high-Gamma, high-sigma, resistive MHD needed

Speaker: Bing Zhang (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA)

Time & Place: Thursday, 3.00pm, July 18th, Lecture Hall, 3rd floor

Abstract: Gamma-ray bursts are the most luminous explosions in the universe. Recent observations by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope suggest that the relativistic jet launched from the central engine is strongly magnetized, and that at least for some GRBs, the gamma-ray emission is powered by turbulent reconnection in the strong magnetic field regime. I will review the observational and theoretical progress in this field, and point out that numerical models that invoke relativistic, magnetically dominated, resistive MHD are demanded to tackle the GRB problem.