A Brief Review of the Amati Relation for GRBs

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions in the universe. Alt-hough the exact mechanism behind these explosions remains elusive, GRBs hold great promise as cosmological probes for two main reasons: they have been observed up to very high redshift (z > 9), and their gamma-ray emission is unencumbered by any intervening dust. Several GRB energy and luminosity indicators have been discovered. These indicators correlate an observable quantity, like the intrinsic peak energy, E p , i , in the spectrum of a burst to an unobservable parameter like the equivalent isotropic energy, E iso , or the isotropic peak luminosity, L p , iso . This paper provides a brief review of one of these energy and luminosity indicators, the Amati relation, and discusses its potential use as a cosmological probe.