Gamma-ray bursts as cool synchrotron sources

Abstract: Gamma-ray bursts are the most energetic electromagnetic sources in the Universe. Their prompt gamma-ray radiation corresponds to an energy release of 1E42-1E47J. Fifty years after their discovery and several dedicated space-based instruments, the physical origin of this emission is still unknown. Synchrotron emission has been one of the early contenders but was criticized because spectral fits of empirical models (such as a smoothly-connected broken power law or a cut-off power law) suggest too hard a slope of the low-energy power law, violating the so-called synchrotron line-of-death. We perform time-resolved gamma-ray spectroscopy of single-peaked GRBs as measured with Fermi/GBM. We demonstrate that idealized synchrotron emission, when properly incorporating time-dependent cooling of the electrons, is capable of fitting ~95% of all these GBM spectra. The comparison with spectral fit results based on previous empirical models demonstrates that the past exclusion of synchrotron radiation as an emission mechanism derived via the line-of-death was misleading. Our analysis probes the physics of these ultra-relativistic outflows and the related microphysical processes, and for the first time provides estimates of magnetic field strength and Lorentz factors of the emitting region directly from spectral fits. Our modeling of the Fermi/GBM observations provides evidence that GRBs are produced by moderately magnetized jets in which relativistic mini-jets emit optically-thin synchrotron radiation at large emission radii.