HAXTEL: A Laue lens telescope development project for a deep exploration of the hard X-ray sky (> 60 keV)

A review of the HAXTEL project devoted to the development of a Laue lens telescope for hard X-/gamma-ray observation of the continuum spectra of celestial sources is presented. Main design properties, open issues, the status of the project and an example of multi-lens configuration with sensitivity expectations are discussed.     

X-ray afterglow of GRB 050712: multiple energy injections into the external shock

As indicated by observed X-ray flares,a great amount of energy can be intermittently released from the postburst central engine of gamma-ray bursts(GRBs).As a natural consequence,the GRB’s external shock could be repeatedly energized.With such a multiple energy injection model,we explore the unique X-ray afterglow light curve of GRB 050712,which exhibits four shallow decay plateaus.Together with three early X-ray flares,the central engine of GRB 050712 is believed to have released energy at least seven times after the burst.Furthermore,we find that the energies released during the four plateaus are all on the same order of magnitude,but the luminosity significantly decreased with time.These results may provide some interesting implications for the GRB central engine.     

Tail Emission from a Ring-like Jet: Its Application to Shallow Decays of Early Afterglows and GRB 050709

Similar to the case of pulsars the magnetic axis and the spin axis of gamma-ray burst sources may not lie on the same line. This may cause the formation of a ring-like jet due to collimation of the processing magnetic axis. We analyze the tail emission from such a jet, and find that it has a shallow decay phase with a temporal index of -1/2 if the Lorentz factor of the ejecta is not very high, which is consistent with the shallow decay phase of some early X-ray afterglow detected by Swift. The ring-like jet has a tail cusp with sharp rising and very sharp decay. This effect can provide an explanation for the re-brightening and sharp decay of the X-ray afterglow of GRB 050709.     

Four years of BATSE gamma-ray burst observations

In four years BATSE has observed more than 1000 gamma-ray bursts, making unprecedented measurements of their spatial and brightness distributions. These measurements and their implications for the origin of gamma-ray bursts are reviewed.     

The swallowing of a quark star by a black hole

In three-dimensional smooth particle hydrodynamic simulations of the coalescence of a quark star with a pseudo-Newtonian black hole all of the quark matter is quickly accreted by the black hole. The Madsen–Caldwell–Friedman argument against the existence of quark stars may need to be re-examined.