Accretion Power in GRBs

Abstract

I discuss the implication of the temporal structure of GRBs to the nature of their inner engine. I argue that the temporal strucutre shows that GRBs must involve internal shocks (or another kind of internal interaction within a relativistic outflow). To produce these internal shocks GRB inner engines must vary on a time scale of a fraction of a second and, on the other hand, they should be active for the whole duration of the burst, namely for several dozen of seconds. This implies that from the point of view of the central engine GRBs are a "quasi steady state" phenomenon. Accretion onto a newly formed black hole is the most likely mechanism that can satisfy these conditions and can power GRBs. I discuss the implication of accretion models of massive disks around black holes to GRB modelling.