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Ultra-relativistic shockwaves in arbitrary continuous media I

  • University of Colorado Boulder

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Ultra-relativistic shockwaves occur in the study of several classes of astrophysical objects, including pulsar wind nebulae and active galactic nuclei, and are widespread in research on gamma-ray bursts. This work investigates generalizations of the familiar Blandford-McKee solutions to the fluid equations for the case of an ultra-relativistic shockwave propagating in a continuous, varying external medium.We obtain a semi-analytic result in which the post-shock material behaves locally as an "almost self-similar". solution, evolving adiabatically with the external medium. We discuss the implications of our results for GRB observations.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationAstrophysics of Compact Objects - International Conference on Astrophysics of Compact Objects
Pages36-39
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
EventInternational Conference on Astrophysics of Compact Objects - Huangshan City, China
Duration: Jul 1 2007Jul 7 2007

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume968
ISSN (Print)0094-243X
ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

Conference

ConferenceInternational Conference on Astrophysics of Compact Objects
Country/TerritoryChina
CityHuangshan City
Period07/1/0707/7/07

Keywords

  • Gamma-ray bursts
  • Relativistic hydrodynamics
  • Shocks

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