Gamma-ray bursts from cusps on superconducting cosmic strings at large redshifts
Bohdan Paczyński · The Astrophysical Journal · 1988
Babul, Paczynski, and Spergel proposed that some gamma-ray bursts may be caused by energy released at the cusps of oscillating loops made of superconducting cosmic strings. There were some mistakes and omissions in that work which are corrected in this paper. In order to observe ~ 100 bursts per year the dimensionless mass of the string, ɛ, must be below 10^-8^, while in order to avoid repetition of bursts at 1 yr intervals ɛ > 10^12.5^ is required. The maximum Lorentz factor at the cusp region has to be between 10^2^ and 10^6.5^. Near a cusp the rest mass of a string is converted into electromagnetic burst with efficiency of the order unity. In order to have 100 gamma-ray bursts per year stronger than 10^-6^ ergs cm^-2^ at Earth the rest mass of a string near the cusps has to be converted into gamma rays with the efficiency of 10^-10^ 10^-11^, and the sources are at large redshifts, z >> 1.