Thursday 17 January at 2pm

ABSTRACT: "The last four years have seen a revolution in the field of gamma-ray burst astronomy. With the detection of long-lived counterparts in the X-ray, optical, and radio bands, we have now firmly established the distance scale to these explosive events, we have a basic physical understanding of the afterglow emission, and it is generally believed that GRBs signal the formation of a black hole. Observational evidence is emerging that the progenitors of long-duration GRBs are massive stars, however this is yet to be firmly established. This talk concentrates on the unique contributions of radio observations to the field of GRB astronomy. In particular, I will discuss the impact of a concerted effort with an extensive network of radio/submm observatories on our understanding of the local environment and geometry (and hence energy) of the bursts, as well as the macro-environment (i.e. host galaxies) of GRBs."

http://astro.caltech.edu/~ejb