Gamma‐Ray Bursts from Neutron Star Kicks

The idea that gamma-ray bursts might be a kind of phenomena associated withneutron star kicks was first proposed by Dar & Plaga (1999). Here we study thismechanism in more detail and point out that the neutron star should be a highspeed one (with proper motion larger than $\sim 1000$ km/s). It is shown thatthe model agrees well with observations in many aspects, such as theenergetics, the event rate, the collimation, the bimodal distribution ofdurations, the narrowly clustered intrinsic energy, and the association ofgamma-ray bursts with supernovae and star forming regions. We also discuss theimplications of this model on the neutron star kick mechanism, and suggest thatthe high kick speed were probably acquired due to the electromagnetic rocketeffect of a millisecond magnetar with an off-centered magnetic dipole.Comment: 12 pages, no figures, ApJ in press (minor revision with respect to Version 2