Evidence of Minijet Emission in a Large Emission Zone from a Magnetically Dominated Gamma-Ray Burst Jet
Abstract The second brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) in history, GRB 230307A, provides an ideal laboratory to study the mechanism of GRB prompt emission thanks to its extraordinarily high photon statistics and its single-episode activity. Here we demonstrate that the rapidly variable components of its prompt emission compose an overall broad single pulse-like profile. Although these individual rapid components are aligned in time across all energy bands, this overall profile conspires to show a well-defined energy-dependent behavior that is typically seen in single GRB pulses. Such a feature demonstrates that the prompt emission of this burst is from many individual emitting units that are casually linked in a emission site at a large distance from the central engine. Such a scenario is in natural consistency with the internal-collision-induced magnetic reconnection and turbulence framework, which invokes many minijets due to local magnetic reconnection that constantly appear and disappear in a global magnetically dominated jet.
Authors
- Shuo Xiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2957-2806)
- Y. Zhao
- Pei-Yi Feng
- Xuanye Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0232-4987)
- Xinqiao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3466-9493)
- Xu Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1960-1343)
- Shuang‐Nan Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5586-1017)
- R. Moradi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2516-5894)
- Shijie Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0858-3995)
- Deliang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2367-5778)
- Yueqiang Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8192-8411)
- S. L. Xiong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4771-7653)
- X.-J. Liu
- Jing‐Ping Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0090-6710)
- Xiang Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3829-7044)
- Qi-Bing Yi
- Da-Feng Guo
- F. Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0782-5797)
- Rui Qiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5219-5530)
- Shu-Xu Yi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7599-0174)
- Wenjun Tan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3840-9528)
- L. M. Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0274-3396)
- X. Y. Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1367-0692)
- W. C. Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8664-5085)
- Peng Wen-xing (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7032-7293)
- Ying Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8418-0728)
- Ce Cai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-6640-6815)
- K. Gong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7197-3955)
- Y. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1061-8245)
- Peng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8097-3616)
- Xiao‐Bo Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4585-589X)
- Hongmei Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7759-5706)
- Chao Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7226-2355)
- Ping Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0466-2223)
- Bing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9725-2524)
- Zhen Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4673-773X)
- Bing Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0238-834X)
- Jiacheng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6637-9258)
- Hua Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-9250-0067)
- J. Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9822-404X)
- Zhenghua An (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2375-5110)
- S. B. Yang
- Chen-Wei Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8053-2985)
- Yang Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3994-4794)
Publication Details
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Published
- 2025-05-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adcf98
- Citations
- 17
- Primary Topic
- Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 19.63
Funders
- Chinese Academy of Sciences