Screw Instability of Magnetic Field and Gamma-Ray Bursts in Type Ib/C Supernovae

Abstract

A toy model for gamma-ray burst supernovae (GRB-SNe) is discussed by considering the effects of screw instability of magnetic field in black hole (BH) magnetosphere. The screw instability in the Blandford-Znajek (BZ) process (henceforth SIBZ) can coexist with the screw instability in the magnetic coupling (MC) process (henceforth SIMC). It turns out that both SIBZ and SIMC occur inevitably, provided that the following parameters are greater than some critical values, i.e., (i) the BH spin, (ii) the power-law index describing the magnetic field at the disk, and (iii) the vertical height of the astrophysical load above the equatorial plane of the rotating BH. The features of several GRBs are well fitted. In our model the durations of the long GRBs depend on the evolve time of the half-opening angle. A small fraction of energy is extracted from the BH via the BZ process to power a GRB, while a large fraction of energy is extracted from the BH via the MC process to power an associated supernova. In addition, the variability time scales of tens of msec in the light curves of the GRBs are fitted by two successive flares due to SIBZ.