An international group of researchers has performed a series of three-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamic calculations examining the trajectories of groups of approximately 10 billion photons. Scientists examined three patterns of gamma-ray bursts of different power jets on supercomputers to predict what these objects would look like during observations.

Gamma-ray bursts are bright flashes lasting several seconds that are detected in the sky every day. The history of their work spans more than 50 years, but the revolution can be considered 1997, when they were localized and made it possible to measure the distance to them. It turns out that gamma-ray bursts can be called the brightest sources in the universe. The observed luminosity in the gamma range can exceed the full luminosity of the Sun by 1021 times, and in a dozen seconds the energy is emitted that 1000 violets would emit throughout its entire existence.

Gamma burst radiation is polarized. This is the flow of photons emitted from a jet emission (Jet). Photons have a wave nature and can have different planes of oscillation. If there is a dominant plane of oscillation, the radiation is called polarized radiation. Astronomers were recently able to measure the polarization of radiation from gamma-ray bursts on the X-ray satellite IXPE. To the surprise of scientists, the brightest gamma-ray bursts have very low polarization.

They calculated how the brightness of the radiation changes over time, with the spectrum and polarization changing for different viewing angles. Although the explosion was brightest from this direction, the polarization at the center of the jet turned out to be low. If the observer observes the boundaries or edge of the main jet, it turns out that about a quarter of the radiation of the jet is polarized. The study was published on: Astrophysical Journal.