Gamma-ray bursts and our multi-messenger Universe

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are violent cosmic explosions directly linked to fundamental questions such as the physics of black holes, relativistic jet ejection, and particle acceleration.

They are also important multi-messenger sources (as discussed in Samuelsson et al., 2019, 2020) and a GRB was at the heart of a pivotal event in August of 2017 when gravitational waves and light were coincidentally detected from a binary neutron star merger.The aim of this research project is to get a more complete physical picture of the electromagnetic emission in GRBs, which remains poorly understood.

In Samuelsson et al. (2022), we developed a state-of-the-art model capable of efficiently simulating shocks that occur in the opaque central regions of a GRB source and comparing these to data.

In this project, the model will be extended by incorporating shocks further out and shocks that break out of a neutron star merger ejecta. Although this is a very active research field, no other model has these capabilities.Working primarily with Prof. Frédéric Daigne at the IAP over a three-year period puts me in the perfect position to achieve the aim.

Not only is Prof.

Daigne at the forefront of GRB and neutron star science, he is also the mission scientist for the core program of SVOM: a next-generation GRB satellite scheduled for launch in mid-2023.

Applying my extended model to the novel data of SVOM will mean a major step forward in our understanding of GRBs and multi-messenger astronomy.