Flashing Dark Matter-- Gamma-Ray Bursts from Relativistic Detonations of Electro-Dilaton Stars

Abstract

We speculate that the universe is filled with stars composed of electromagnetic and dilaton fields which are the sources of the powerful gamma-ray bursts impinging upon us from all directions of the universe. We calculate soliton-like solutions of these fields and show that their energy can be converted into a relativistic plasma in an explosive way. As in classical detonation theory the conversion proceeds by a relativistic self-similar solution for a spherical detonation wave which extracts the energy from the scalar field via a plasma in the wave front.