
Citation: Hu, Y.-Y.; Huang, Y.-L.;
Huang, J.-W; Zhu, Z.; Tang, Q.-W. A
Comprehensive Study of Bright
Fermi-GBM Short Gamma-Ray
Bursts: II. Very Short Burst and Its
Implications. Universe 2022,8, 152.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
universe8100512
Academic Editors: Gang Zhao,
Zi-Gao Dai and Da-Ming Wei
Received: 8 August 2022
Accepted: 27 September 2022
Published: 1 October 2022
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Article
A Comprehensive Study of Bright Fermi-GBM Short Gamma-Ray
Bursts: II. Very Short Burst and Its Implications
Ying-Yong Hu, Yao-Lin Huang, Jia-Wei Huang, Zan Zhu and Qing-Wen Tang *
Department of Physics, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China
*Correspondence: qwtang@ncu.edu.cn
Abstract:
A thermal component is suggested to be the physical composition of the ejecta of several bright
gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Such a thermal component is discovered in the time-integrated spectra of
several short GRBs as well as long GRBs. In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis of ten very
short GRBs detected by Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor to search for the thermal component. We found
that both the resultant low-energy spectral index and the peak energy in each GRB imply a common hard
spectral feature, which is in favor of the main classification of the short/hard versus long/soft dichotomy
in the GRB duration. We also found moderate evidence for the detection of thermal component in eight
GRBs. Although such a thermal component contributes a small proportion of the global prompt gamma-
ray emission, the modified thermal-radiation mechanism could enhance the proportion significantly, such
as in subphotospheric dissipation.
Keywords: gamma-ray bursts; thermal component; prompt phase; non-thermal component
1. Introduction
Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) is the most intense transient astrophysical phenomena in the
universe. Long GRB (LGRB, duration longer than 2 s) is believed to origin from the core-
collapse of a massive star [
1
–
6
]. However, short GRB (SGRB, duration less than 2 s) shares a
distinct origin, such as a merger process of two compact objects, e.g., two neutron stars (NS-NS),
which is first proved by a gravitational-wave GRB, GRB 170817A [
7
]. For both types of GRBs,
the dominate component of the gamma-ray emission at the photospheric radius, where energy
dissipation takes place in the optically thick regime, is the so-called quisa-thermal component,
which gradually fades across the burst duration. This thermal component represented by a
standard blackbody function is discovered in several bright GRBs, such as GRB 090902B, GRB
120323A and GRB 170206A [
8
–
12
]. Some modified blackbody modesl to reproduce the thermal
photospheric emission are proposed and employed to fit the spectra of several GRBs [
13
–
16
].
Subphotospheric emission is also a popular mechanism for the thermal component in the Fermi
era [
17
–
19
]. Photospheric emission from a structured jet or a hybrid relativistic outflow is
invoked in some GRBs [
20
–
22
]. Photospheric emission models via the Compton scattering are
also proposed to broaden the thermal peak [23–26].
In the fireball model, GRB photosphere often occurs in the early phase, after which there
is the emission region dominated by the internal shock, thus the thermal component and
the non-thermal component would dominate the different emission phase [
27
]. The spectral
evolution that includes the thermal and non-thermal component is also confirmed in several
GRBs [
28
–
31
]. In this work, we select a GRB sample with a very short duration detected by
Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (Fermi/GBM) to judge these features, such with a burst
duration shorter than 0.05 s, which often cannot be performed the time-resolved spectral
Universe 2022,8, 152. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe8100152 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/universe
arXiv:2210.00410v1 [astro-ph.HE] 2 Oct 2022