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A&A 422, 381-389 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20034462

On the origin of X-ray flashes

S. Dado¹, A. Dar^{1, 2} and A. De Rújula<sup>2

1</sup>  Physics Department and Space Research Institute, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel
    e-mail: arnon@physics.technion.ac.il
²  Theory Division, CERN, 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland

(Received 7 October 2003 / Accepted 12 February 2004 )

Abstract
We use the cannonball (CB) model of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows (AGs) to analyze the observational data on X-ray flashes (XRFs) and their AGs. We show that the observations support the CB-model interpretation that XRFs, like GRBs, are produced by the explosions of core-collapse supernovae (SNe) akin to SN1998bw, by jets of highly-relativistic CBs. The XRFs and GRBs are intrinsically identical objects, but the XRFs are viewed from angles (relative to the jet direction) which are typically a few times larger than the typical viewing angles of "classical", long-duration GRBs. There should be XRFs, not observed so far, with durations similar to those of short GRBs.

Key words: X-rays: bursts -- -rays: bursts -- stars: supernovae: general

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© ESO 2004

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