High Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts: Observational Signatures of Superconducting Cosmic Strings?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that some high-redshift gamma-ray bursts may originate from superconducting cosmic strings, offering an alternative explanation that aligns with observed burst durations, energies, and rates.

Contribution

It introduces superconducting cosmic strings as a novel source for high-redshift GRBs, explaining observational anomalies and rate discrepancies.

Findings

High-redshift GRBs can be explained by cosmic string bursts.

Cosmic string burst rate increases with redshift, unlike collapsar rate.

Superconducting cosmic strings provide a natural explanation for observed GRB properties.

Abstract

The high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), GRBs 080913 and 090423, challenge the conventional GRB progenitor models by their short durations, typical for short GRBs, and their high energy releases, typical for long GRBs. Meanwhile, the GRB rate inferred from high-redshift GRBs also remarkably exceeds the prediction of the collapsar model, with an ordinary star formation history. We show that all these contradictions could be eliminated naturally, if we ascribe some high-redshift GRBs to electromagnetic bursts of superconducting cosmic strings. High-redshift GRBs could become a reasonable way to test the superconducting cosmic string model, because the event rate of cosmic string bursts increases rapidly with increasing redshifts, whereas the collapsar rate decreases.