TANVIR , Nial R.

Dirty fireballs are on-axis gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with moderately relativistic jets, unable to create the bright flash of gamma-ray radiation characteristic of GRBs. Up to 2023, only 3 dirty fireball candidates had been observed. In June 2023 ZTF reported a new fast fading transient known as AT2023lcr, consistent with a GRB afterglow at...

The majority of long duration ($>2$ s) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to arise from the collapse of massive stars \cite{Hjorth+03}, with a small proportion created from the merger of compact objects. Most of these systems are likely formed via standard stellar evolution pathways. However, it has long been thought that a fraction of GRBs...