# A Shotgun Model for Gamma Ray Bursts

## 1. Introduction

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) show variability over a large range in time scales — from millisecond spikes in BATSE light curves (Bhat et al. 1992) to months in the associated afterglows (Bloom et al. 1999, Frail et al. 1997). The discovery of afterglow redshifts that place GRBs at cosmological distances implies isotropic energies of $`E_{\mathrm{iso}}10^{53}\mathrm{ergs}`$ for the average burst in gamma rays alone, released over an observed time of order $`T_{\mathrm{obs}}10\mathrm{s}`$. Since GRB spectra are believed to be optically thin, the only viable explanation is a highly relativistic outflow that releases its energy at sufficient distances from the central engine for the optical depth and the compactness of the plasma to be small, with required bulk Lorentz factors of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }100`$.

In early models (M$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$sz$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}`$ros & Rees 1992, Katz 1994a, Sari & Piran 1995) the gamma rays were produced by the shock such an outflow drives into the interstellar medium (thus called ‘external shock models’). While providing a way to produce the required energy in gamma rays over the observed GRB durations, these models have not been very successful at explaining the observed short term variability: in order to see strong variability, the surrounding medium must be very clumpy (e.g., Shaviv & Dar 1995, Fenimore et al. 1996). It has been argued that this process might lead to very low efficiencies at converting kinetic into thermal energy (Sari & Piran 1997). However, a quantitative investigation casts some doubt on this argument (Dermer & Mitman 1999).

These difficulties of the external shock model prompted Sari & Piran (1997) to postulate that the gamma ray emission must instead be produced by the internal shock scenario (Narayan, Paczy$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{n}}`$ski, & Piran 1992, Rees & M$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$sz$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}`$ros 1994). In this picture, the duration of the burst $`T`$ is set by the time scale over which the central engine operates, while the substructure in the bursts on time scales $`\tau `$ is produced by inhomogeneities in the outflow. These inhomogeneities are assumed to travel at different bulk Lorentz factors $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Upon running into each other, these shells of material get shocked and release some of their kinetic energy in the form of gamma rays. This picture has become the paradigm in GRB physics. However, recent estimates of the energy conversion efficiency $`\eta `$ indicate that at best a few percent of the bulk kinetic energy carried by the outflow can be converted into gamma rays in internal shocks, which leads to uncomfortably high requirements on GRB energies (Panaitescu, Spada, & M$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$sz$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}`$ros 1999, Kumar 1999; larger efficiencies can be achieved if you assume large dispersion in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, Katz 1997). A non-spherical geometry can reduce the required energy, however, a very small opening angle of the outflow implies a high rate of unobserved GRBs, which is hard to reconcile with the number of observed supernovae (which are believed to produce GRB precursors - either compact objects or hypernovae). See Piran (1999) for a detailed review of the subject.

Fenimore et al. (1996, 1999, see also Woods & Loeb 1995) recently suggested that an external shock scenario could give rise to the observed variability if the spherical symmetry of the outflow were broken, still in the context of what Sari & Piran (1997) call a ‘Type I’ model, i.e., the burst duration is set by the slowing-down time of the ejecta. However, the observed temporal constancy of the pulse width in individual spikes of GRB990123 seems to rule out such a model (Fenimore, Ramirez-Ruiz, & Wu 1999. This would also argue against the scenario suggested by Dermer & Mitman, 1999.) We propose a different way by which substructure in the outflow can produce a GRB, also via the interaction with the external medium, but in a ‘Type II’ scenario, i.e., the duration of the burst is set by the lifetime of the central engine (see also Chiang & Dermer 1999, Blackman, Yi, & Field 1996).

In this model, the outflow itself is very clumpy, with most of the energy concentrated in small blobs, which are sprayed out with high $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ over a small opening angle. These bullets then slam into the surrounding medium (not unlike a meteor shower or a shotgun blast), where they release their kinetic energy and produce gamma ray emission via external shocks, as described in §2. Note that, in this paper, we assume the existence of bullets; their possible origin is a topic for further research (see §3 for comments). Section 3 contains a discussion on radiative efficiencies, simulated burst light curves, and afterglows, and §4 contains a brief summary.

## 2. The Gamma Ray Burst Model

BATSE light curves of most GRBs exhibit very spiky substructure (Fig. 1). In the context of our model, these spikes are produced by individual bullets of cold ejecta slamming into the surrounding medium. As we will show, a distribution of masses and/or Lorentz factors of these bullets can reproduce the observed signatures of GRBs reasonably well.

In the following we assume that the central engine of the burst releases a number of bullets $`N^{}`$ distributed over a fan of opening angle of $`\theta 10^{}`$ with Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1000\mathrm{\Gamma }_3`$ and released over a time period of $`T10100\mathrm{s}`$. Each bullet is assumed to freely expand sideways, with a sideways velocity of $`v_{}=\alpha /\mathrm{\Gamma }10^2\alpha _2/\mathrm{\Gamma }1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, measured in the observer’s frame ($`\alpha `$ is the sideways velocity in the comoving frame). The assumption that $`\alpha 1`$ implies that the internal expansion speed is very sub-relativistic.

Since $`\theta 1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, we only see a fraction of the total released energy, $`E_{\mathrm{obs}}=10^{47}E_{53}/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{ergs}`$ (where $`E_{53}`$ is the inferred isotropic energy in units of $`10^{53}\mathrm{ergs}`$) and an observed number of bullets $`N100N_{100}=N^{}/(\theta ^2\mathrm{\Gamma }^2)`$. It is essential in our model that the covering fraction be less than unity (otherwise it would turn into an internal shock model), thus we require $`\alpha <1/\sqrt{N}`$.

A bullet of mass $`M_\mathrm{b}=5.5\times 10^{13}E_{53}M_{}/N_{100}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}`$ will have converted half of its kinetic energy into internal energy (which can subsequently be radiated away as gamma rays, see below) after it has swept up or ploughed through a column of interstellar gas of mass $`M_\mathrm{s}M_\mathrm{b}/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. If the duration of the observed spike is $`\tau _\mathrm{s}10^3\tau _3\mathrm{s}`$, then the length over which the material is swept up must be of the order of $`\mathrm{\Delta }R=3\times 10^{13}\tau _3\mathrm{\Gamma }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\mathrm{cm}`$. If the ambient density is $`n_{\mathrm{amb}}10^8n_8\mathrm{cm}^3`$, the required Lorentz factor is

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=2300\left(\frac{E_{53}}{\alpha _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}N_{100}\tau _{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}n_8}\right)^{1/8}$$
(1)   
This model fails for low ambient densities, as has already been discussed in the literature (e.g., Sari & Piran 1997). However, if the surrounding medium is very dense, $`n10^8\mathrm{cm}^3`$, Lorentz factors of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1000`$ can explain the observed short term variability. The immediate conclusion is that in this model GRBs are not caused by mergers of naked compact objects. Rather, the required high ambient densities tie this model to the hypernova picture (Paczy$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{n}}`$ski 1998, Woosley 1993), which predicts that the material surrounding the blast is dense because of the pre-hypernova stellar wind. (Dense circum-GRB matter was also suggested in a different context by Katz, 1994b.)

The fate of the outer layers of a hypernova precursor is unknown. If the bullets have to travel through a significant fraction of the star’s mantle (which is optically thick and thus not the site where the gamma rays are produced), their opening angle must be extremely narrow: $`\alpha <5\times 10^4E_{53}/(\sqrt{N_{100}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_3M_\mathrm{M})`$, where $`M_\mathrm{M}`$ is the mass of the mantle in units of $`M_{}`$. Since hypernovae are believed to originate from rapidly rotating massive stars collapsing into a compact object, it is possible that the material along the rotation axis has collapsed before the GRB, in which case the bullets would travel freely until they hit the circumstellar material.

Similarly, little is known about the conditions of the pre-hypernova circumstellar material other than that it must be dense. Massive stars are known to have strong winds with mass loss rates of $`\dot{M}10^610^4M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$ and wind velocities from $`v_\mathrm{w}20\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (red supergiant) to $`v_\mathrm{w}1000\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (blue supergiant). These winds must still be present after the star collapses. In the following, we will assume that the GRB is produced in this leftover wind. The density profile in the ambient matter, then, roughly goes as $`nr^2`$ outside some radius $`R_0`$. It is natural to assume that $`R_0`$ is of the order of the stellar radius, $`R_010^{12}\mathrm{cm}`$ for a blue supergiant and $`R_010^{14}\mathrm{cm}`$ for a red supergiant. As a conservative estimate we assume that the sphere inside $`R_0`$ is evacuated.

If we parameterize the density as

$$n_{\mathrm{amb}}(r>R_0)=\frac{1.5\times 10^{36}\mathrm{cm}^3}{r^2}\frac{\dot{M}_6}{v_{20}}$$
(2)   
where $`\dot{M}_6`$ is the mass loss rate in units of $`10^6M_{}\mathrm{yr}^1`$, $`r`$ is in cm, and $`v_{20}`$ is the wind velocity in units of $`20\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the observed slowing-down time scale is given by

$$\tau =0.05\mathrm{s}\frac{E_{53}v_{20}}{\alpha _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}N_{100}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{4}\dot{M}_6},$$
(3)   
independent of $`R_0`$. Thus $`\tau `$ can be of the order of a few milliseconds for both red supergiant and blue supergiant winds if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1000`$. However, the observed time scale could conceivably be longer than this. The angular smearing time scale $`\tau _{\mathrm{ang}}`$ is defined as the spread in light travel time to the observer across the emitting surface. For a bullet at a viewing angle of $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ this gives $`\tau _{\mathrm{ang}}\alpha (R_0+\mathrm{\Delta }R)/\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$, which is longer than $`\tau `$ if $`R_0\mathrm{\Delta }R/\alpha =1.5\times 10^{17}\mathrm{cm}E_{53}v_{20}/(\mathrm{\Gamma }_{3}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}\alpha _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}N_{100}\dot{M}_6)`$. This is only of concern for very dense red supergiant winds, and only if the region interior to $`R_0`$ is evacuated.

In Fig. 2 we show various limits on $`n_{\mathrm{amb}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ for a fixed opening angle of $`\alpha _2=1`$:

* Each bullet is expected to plough through undisturbed medium. Thus, the covering fraction $`N\alpha ^2`$ of all the bullets together must be smaller than 1. For a slowing down time of $`\tau _3=1`$, this gives the dashed line in the plot, to the left of which the covering fraction is larger than unity.
* The material between the location where the bullets release their energy and the observer must be optically thin. For $`\tau _3=1`$ and for $`R_0=0`$ (the most conservative limits) this constraint produces the dash-dotted line to the left of which the optical depth is larger than unity.
* The forward shock must be radiative (see §3). This constraint is shown as a light grey region inside of which the shock is not radiative.
* The angular smearing time $`\tau _{\mathrm{ang}}`$ must be smaller than the observed stopping time $`\tau `$. This limit is shown as a dotted line for $`R_0=10^{14}\mathrm{cm}`$. To the right of this line, the smearing time is longer than the observed slowing down time.

The hatched region in the plot shows how the allowed region of parameter space opens up if we relax the time scale requirements to $`\tau _3=10`$.

It is worth noting that this model makes an exception to the rule that external shocks cannot produce ‘Type II’ behavior (Sari & Piran 1997). This is for two reasons: First, the opening angle of the ejecta is so small that the angular smearing time is short compared to $`\tau `$. Second, the ambient density is so high that the observed slowing-down time is $`\tau 10^3\mathrm{s}`$. As a result, the total duration of the burst is determined by the time the central engine operates, while the short term variability is determined by the mass of the bullets and the statistical properties of the outflow. This is an important difference from the internal shock model, where the variability timescale is set by the intrinsic time scale of the central engine (e.g., the orbital time in a merger scenario).

## 3. Discussion

In order for the efficiency of the burst to be reasonable, most of the internal energy produced in the shock must be radiated away immediately (this requirement holds for all GRB models). Electron synchrotron radiation is the only mechanism remotely efficient enough to produce the gamma rays. While the efficiency also depends on the transfer of energy from protons to electrons, we assume here that this process is efficient. Since we know the observed peak frequency of the gamma rays (of order $`500\mathrm{keV}`$, Piran 1999), we can then estimate the radiative efficiency under the assumption that the gamma rays are produced by electron synchrotron radiation. It is usually assumed that the magnetic field in the shocked gas is in equipartition with the energy density in relativistic particles. We therefore parameterize the magnetic field strength as $`U_\mathrm{B}ϵ_\mathrm{B}U_{\mathrm{B},\mathrm{eq}}`$, where $`U_{\mathrm{Beq}}`$ is the equipartition magnetic field energy density.

Since the shocked wind material is likely flowing around the bullets at close to the speed of light (like a cocoon surrounding a radio jet), for efficient cooling we require that the cooling time scale in the comoving frame be smaller than the light travel time across the surface of the bullet $`\alpha (R_0+\mathrm{\Delta }R)/\mathrm{\Gamma }c`$. If that were not the case, the material pushed aside by the bullet would cool adiabatically rather than radiatively. Independent of $`R_0`$, this translates to the condition $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1430[\dot{M}_6\alpha _{2}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}ϵ_\mathrm{B}/v_{20}]^{1/4}\sqrt{E_\nu /500\mathrm{keV}}`$ (to the left of the light grey area in Fig. 2), where $`E_\nu `$ is the observed peak energy of the gamma rays. This is not a strict condition, however, since we do not know what the efficiency of the GRB is.

Since our model assumes a central engine at work (essentially a black box shooting out bullets at a rate $`R(t)`$), any distribution of spikes could be reproduced, since $`R(t)`$ is arbitrary. It is, however, surprisingly simple to reproduce the main features seen in different burst profiles by varying only a few parameters in our model. For simplicity, we assume that all the bullets have the same initial $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the same sideways expansion rate, i.e., constant $`\alpha `$. We are left with two parameters — the number of bullets $`N_{100}`$ and the average slowing-down time (eq. ) — and two unknown functions: the mass distribution of the bullets $`N(M_\mathrm{b})`$ and the rate at which they are released $`R(t)`$. We assume that $`N(M_\mathrm{b})M_{\mathrm{b}}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/3}`$, chosen to give the observed power spectrum of $`P(\tau )\tau ^{1/3}`$ (Beloborodov, Stern, & Svensson 1999). For $`R(t)`$ we assume (for lack of better knowledge) that the bullets are released randomly over a time interval of 15 sec.

To produce synthetic GRB lightcurves, we calculated the time dependence of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and the associated dissipation rate. Assuming the bullets are radiating efficiently and correcting for Doppler boosting and frequency shifts, we then computed the composite lightcurve for each bullet. We have plotted two simulated light curves in Fig. 1 for $`\tau _3=10`$ and $`N=100`$ (panel c) and $`N=10^4`$ (panel d). It seems that simply by varying $`N_{100}`$ and $`\tau _3`$ we can produce a wide range in light curve shapes. More complex features (like the gaps seen in panel a) must be related to the activity of the central engine and cannot be reproduced by a random spike rate as assumed above. We have also plotted the light curve produced by the deceleration of a single bullet along the line of sight (Fig. 1c, insert). Note that this profile is very similar to a true FRED (fast rise, exponential decay) profile. The rise is instantaneous and the decay follows a steep power-law (to first order). While indicative, these calculations are still rather crude and simplistic. A more careful analysis of shotgun GRB lightcurves should be carried out in the near future.

Afterglows are an important test for any GRB model. How can we understand an afterglow in the context of the shotgun model? It is not immediately obvious why our model should produce an afterglow at all. This is because the bullets are assumed to spread sideways. As mentioned above, the bullets will have lost half of their kinetic energy at $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$, where they have swept up $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of their own mass. If we simply followed the dynamics of an individual bullet further in time, it would lose the rest of its energy exponentially quickly (Rhoads 1997). This is because the sideways velocity in the lab frame goes as $`1/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, so that when $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ starts decreasing, the sideways velocity increases, which in turn increases the cross-sectional area of the bullet. As a result, the bullet can sweep up more mass, which leads to a run-away process. This would imply that the ejecta would come to a complete stop not far away from $`\mathrm{\Delta }R`$ and the observed afterglow would last less than a day.

However, there are many bullets traveling together. As they expand, they start increasing the covering factor of the blast. Once the collection of bullets reaches unit covering factor, they stop slowing down exponentially, since further sideways expansion does not lead to an increase in swept up mass. As a result, the bullets start traveling collectively, resembling a collimated blast wave with opening angle $`\theta `$ rather than a meteor shower. The only possible difference between our model and the standard afterglow models is that in our model, the external density follows a power-law behavior instead of being constant, which has been discussed by Dai & Lu (1998). Since the opening angle of the merged blast is much larger than the opening angle of the individual bullets, the sideways expansion does not affect the dynamics until much later, when the blast has spread by an angle of order $`\theta `$ (Rhoads 1997). This transition from constant opening angle to rapid sideways expansion has been used in other models to explain the temporal break seen in the afterglow lightcurve of GRB990510 (Stanek, et al. 1999, Harrison et al. 1999, Sari, Piran, & Halpern 1999)

It should be noted that we have not attempted to present a specific model for the production of bullets in this paper. We are confident that these bullets can be produced in GRB outflows and will concentrate on their production in future work.

## 4. Conclusions

We have shown that GRBs can be produced by a shower of cold, heavy bullets shot at bulk Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }1000`$ into a dense medium. The required densities are consistent with a stellar wind from either a blue or red supergiant. This ties our model directly to the hypernova scenario. The gamma rays are produced by the shocks these bullets drive into the ambient gas. The total duration of the burst is then determined by the time the central engine operates rather than the slowing-down time of the bullets, while the latter produces the short-term variability seen in many bursts. After the gamma ray phase (when the bullets have lost half of their kinetic energy to radiation) the blast waves of the individual bullets merge into a single collimated shock front, which produces a standard afterglow in a declining external density profile. We have made no attempt to explain how a central engine might produce such a shower of bullets. This will be the subject of future work.

This research was supported in part by NSF grants AST95–29170 and AST98–76887. MCB also acknowledges support from a Guggenheim Fellowship. We thank Pawan Kumar, Chris Reynolds, Mike Nowak, Jim Chiang, Martin Rees, and Annalisa Celotti for helpful discussions.