On dynamics of relativistic shock waves with losses in gamma-ray burst sources

Abstract

Generalization of the self-similar solution for ultrarelativistic shock waves (Blandford & McKee, 1976) is obtained in presence of losses localized on the shock front or distributed in the downstream medium. It is shown that there are two qualitatively different regimes of shock deceleration, corresponding to small and large losses. We present the temperature, pressure and density distributions in the downstream fluid as well as Lorentz factor as a function of distance from the shock front.