Grbs And Redshift Theories Conflict, either one or the other

Okay, this is how I'm looking at it. Maybe someone can clear it up.

GRBs are a mystery because:
1.) they are VERY bright
2.) they are VERY far away.

Those two things don't work good together. It's usually one or the other.

Scientists think GRBs are VERY far away b/c the light that reaches us is SOOOOO red-shifted, it implies distances of > 12 billion light years away.

Contrarily, when we observe one, their intensity is SOOOOO great by the time the light gets to us, that it implies that the ORIGINAL intensity of the burst 12 billion ly's away was IMPOSSIBLY intense.

So my conclusion: Either we have the concept of red-shift wrong, or we have the concept of light intensity and mass acceleration wrong.

My thoughts on the matter: It's probably that GRBs are actually much closer than believed. This will allow for the energy levels to be within the bounds of reality. We simply either do not understand red-shift as well as we think we do, OR the high-speed (.99c) particles expelled with the light is traveling with the light for a prolonged period of time and is increasing it's red-shift beyond what it should be.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Am I completely wrong, or do I have a point?

This post has been edited by Latrosicarius on Apr 26 2007, 03:16 PM

At the very first glance, are you really talking about the gamma-ray bursts or about quasars? How can you identify the red shift of gamma-ray burst?

This post has been edited by Zephir on Apr 26 2007, 04:44 PM

A gamma ray burst GRB is an event rather than a thing. It's thought that a variety of cosmic events can result in a gamma ray burst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray_burst

I don't know much about this. I didn't think it was a massive mystery though. I thought the massive distant ones were thought to be akin to galactic jets rather than full-spherical events putting out gamma rays in all directions. From the above:

The energy requirements are eased somewhat if the burst is not symmetric, however: if, for example, the energy is funneled out along a narrow jet with an angle of a few degrees, the actual energy release for a typical GRB becomes comparable to that in a very luminous supernova.

I just googled this bit of news for what it's worth.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70328111038.htm

This post has been edited by Farsight on Apr 26 2007, 04:53 PM

I'm talking about GRBs. The most common theory of where a GRB comes from is a star at the moment of collapse into a black hole.

How can I identify the red-shift of a GRB? What to you mean exactly? All light red-shifts over long distances. Light's frequency never changes over distances, but through energy-transmitting collisions and interactions with matter in the vacuum of space over great distances, it's wavelength will alter at a predictable rate.

It's wavelength will go from smaller (i.e. gamma waves) to larger (i.e. radio waves). Using colors to express this wavelength increase would be from smallest (blue) to largest (red). Therefore RED-shift means the wavelength is increasing over time.

The light that we see from GRBs are very very red-shifted (larger wavelengths than they originally were when they exploded from the collapsar). Since red-shift normally occurs at a predictable rate, we can calculate the shift to equal distance.

Using this calculation the distances that the light has traveled has been found to be astoundingly far. The intensity of the light that reaches us from such a distance should theoretically be MUCH less.

But it isn't. Why? That is what my first post is about.

Latrosicarius, your mystery of too much energy/too far away is a few decades out of date. You are also confusing GRBs and quasars in your descriptions.

There is solid evidence to show that the GRB is emitted in a tight pair of beams, so the total energy put out is far less than what a spherical explosion would be. The amount of energy is within the budget of the "hypernova" model. There is no mystery, only more details to fill in.

That is completely wrong. Red shift as a measure of distance is caused by the difference in velocity between the emitter and us.

I think Zephir's question wasn't about shifts in general, but how do you know what color the thing was supposed to be in the first place, in order to tell?

Are you kidding? There are more types of redshift than Doppler redshift. There's also cosmological redshift caused by the expansion of space, and gravitational redshift, caused by high gravity fields.

And of course, there's relativistic redshift caused by the source object moving at a high percentage of c. The particles that emanated this GRB were traveling at VERY high fractions of c as they were jetting out of the poles of the collapsar.

Obviously, the original radiation would cover all wavelengths, but would be mostly in the gamma range.

OK, how can you prove this point?

I'm not trying to prove that point... the scientists looking at the Hubble Telescope are TELLING us it's red-shifted. That's how they determine how far away it is.

I was not kidding. I was specifically thinking of the cosmic expansion, and debated putting "velocity" in quotes, but decided it was too much detail for the point. That is commonly called "doppler" even though the curve is a little different than for ordinary velocity. Gravitational red shift is not used to determine distance.

Great, now just some relevant link is missing to prove this claim.
Can you supply some?

This post has been edited by Zephir on Apr 28 2007, 12:08 AM