The photospheric origin of the Yonetoku relation in gamma-ray bursts

Understand

Long duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest events since the Big Bang itself, are believed to originate in an ultra-relativistic jet breaking out from a massive stellar envelope.

• Despite decades of study, there is still no consensus on their emission mechanism.
• One unresolved question is the origin of the tight correlation between the spectral peak energy Ep and peak luminosity Lp discovered in observations.
• This Yonetoku relation is the tightest correlation found in the properties of the prompt phase of GRB emission, providing the best diagnostic for the radiation mechanism.