Hyperaccreting black hole as gamma-ray burst central engine. I. Baryon loading in gamma-ray burst jets

Abstract

A hyperaccreting stellar-mass black hole has been long speculated as the best candidate for the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Recent rich observations of GRBs by space missions such as Swift and Fermi pose new constraints on GRB central engine models. In this paper, we study the baryon-loading processes of a GRB jet launched from a black hole central engine. We consider a relativistic jet powered by -annihilation or by the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) mechanism. We consider baryon loading from a neutrino-driven wind launched from a neutrino-cooling-dominated accretion flow. For a magnetically dominated BZ jet, we consider neutron drifting from the magnetic wall surrounding the jet and subsequent positron capture and proton-neutron inelastic collisions. The minimum baryon loads in both types of jet are calculated. We find that in both cases a more luminous jet tends to be more baryon poor. A neutrino-driven "fireball" is typically "dirtier" than a magnetically dominated jet, while a magnetically dominated jet can be much cleaner. Both models have the right scaling to interpret the empirical Γ-L <inf>iso</inf> relation discovered recently. Since some neutrino-driven jets have too much baryon loading as compared with the data, we suggest that at least a good fraction of GRBs should have a magnetically dominated central engine. © 2013. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..