A Fundamental Test of the GRB Fireball Model

该团队将使用斯隆数字巡天(SDSS)，这是一项5种颜色的大型自动化测量，以寻找可能是产生伽马射线暴(GRB)的恒星爆炸的“孤儿余辉”的物体。伽马射线暴是一种强烈的短暂伽马射线暴。伽马射线如此强烈，到达时间如此之短，以至于它们很可能被集中在一束狭窄的光束中。当光束没有指向我们的方向时，我们会看到光学变亮，但没有伽马射线：一种“孤立的余辉”。麦克纳马拉博士的团队将专注于SDSS望远镜在过去几个月里每隔几个晚上返回的300平方度的天空。他们将检查SDSS数据库中已发现的迅速变亮的天体，并自动检查其中哪些与已知伽马射线暴的光学行为相似，但没有任何伴随的伽马射线。该组织估计，如果目前流行的“火球”模型是正确的，他们应该会发现大约20个孤儿的余辉。没有探测到任何孤立的余辉将表明该模型存在严重问题。麦克纳马拉博士是六所为西语裔服务的机构之一的教员，这六所机构也是Research I大学。该组织计划每年让至少2名来自代表不足的少数族裔的学生参与这项研究，而且他们在这种指导方面有着很好的记录。麦克纳马拉博士参与了新墨西哥州立大学的一项工作，该项目为未被充分代表的少数族裔的K-12学生提供课外课程，他还为K-8教师开发了远程教育课程。对于教师来说，他将制定结合新墨西哥州公立学校标准的教案，允许学生识别突出的可变天文物体。

The group will use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a large automated survey in 5 colors, to search for objects that might be 'orphan afterglows' of the stellar explosions that produce gamma ray bursts (GRB), intense short-lived bursts of gamma rays. The gamma rays are so intense, and arrive over such a short time, that they are probably concentrated into a narrow beam. When the beam is not pointed in our direction, we would see an optical brightening but no gamma rays: an 'orphan afterglow'. Dr. McNamara's group will concentrate on 300 square degrees of the sky to which the SDSS telescope has returned every few nights over many months. They will examine the SDSS database of objects that have been found to brighten rapidly, and examine automatically which of these resemble the optical behavior of known gamma-ray bursts, but without any accompanying gamma rays. The group estimates that if the currently-popular 'fireball' model is correct, they should find roughly 20 orphan afterglows. Failure to detect any orphan afterglows would indicate serious problems with the model. Dr. McNamara is on the faculty of one of the six Hispanic-Serving Institutions that are also Research I universities. The group plans to involve at least 2 students from under-represented minorities each year in this research, and it has a strong record of such mentorship. Dr. McNamara is involved in an effort at New Mexico State University that provides after-school programs to K-12 students from under-represented minorities, and he has developed distance-education classes for K-8 teachers. For the teachers, he will develop lesson plans incorporating New Mexico's public school standards that allow students to identify prominent variable astronomical objects.