The Pierce Prize lecture: what the diverse progenitors of gamma-ray bursts — collapsars, mergers, and oddballs — teach us, and how bursts became tools for cosmology.
The 2009 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize lecture, given in Invited Session 103 (Marriott Ballroom, 3:40–4:20 pm); the video is the AAS's own recording, listed on the meeting page.
AAS abstract 103.01.
While the majority of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been established as due to the death of massive stars, there is increasing evidence that many other progenitor systems — from degenerate binary coalescence to extragalactic magnetars — are responsible for some small fraction of observed events. Understanding how this diverse set of physical origins are manifest in the high-energy phenomenology is an ongoing pursuit, drawing interesting parallels to supernova taxonometric work. Yet, irrespective of classification, GRBs are emerging as unique tools in other aspects of astronomy. I will review some of these promising new directions, including the connection to the gravity-wave universe and the use of GRBs to probe the epoch of reionization.