Scientists discover highest-energy gamma-ray line in the universe

A analysis group led by the Institute of Excessive Power Physics (IHEP) of the Chinese language Academy of Sciences (CAS) report the invention of a gamma-ray line as much as 37 million electron-volts from a particularly shiny gamma-ray burst, which represents the very best power spectral line options emitted by celestial objects within the universe.

As well as, the group discovered that the gamma-ray line evolves as a power-law perform of time, offering vital clues to unveil the thriller of the road. The research was published in Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are probably the most energetic explosion phenomena within the universe, which may be produced by both the core collapse of an enormous star or the collision of two compact stars, reminiscent of neutron stars and black holes.

This discovery was made on the so-called brightest of all time GRB, named GRB 221009A, which belongs to the previous class and arrived on the Earth on October ninth, 2022, and was noticed by many telescopes all around the world.

Researchers from the IHEP, the Yunnan Observatories of CAS, Hebei Regular College, and Guizhou Regular College have fashioned a collaboration staff and executed a complete evaluation of the statement knowledge from two space gamma-ray screens named GECAM-C and Fermi/GBM.

GECAM-C supplied an correct measurement of the low energy band spectrum of this GRB, whereas the Fermi/GBM lined the excessive power band the place the gamma-ray line confirmed up.

Particularly, this burst is so shiny (too many gamma-ray photons in a brief time period) that the Fermi/GBM detector suffered knowledge loss in the course of the shiny a part of the burst, making dependable knowledge evaluation very troublesome.

Luckily, GECAM-C didn’t expertise such an issue because of its devoted design of the instrument; thus, the GECAM-C knowledge was used to right the Fermi/GBM knowledge.

After the very difficult analyses of the information points, instrumental results, and background modeling, researchers managed to derive the dependable spectra of this GRB and additional recognized a sequence of gamma-ray traces all through the burst, together with the stunning gamma-ray line with power as much as 37 million electron-volts detected in the course of the shiny a part of the burst.

Curiously, they discovered the road power varies as a power-law perform of time, whereas the ratio of the road width to line power stays virtually fixed. Such options supplied stable proof of the truth and the GRB origin of those gamma-ray traces.

The discoveries of this research shed new gentle on the physics of GRBs and their relativistic jets.