| Long gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are brief durations of intense, highly variable gamma radiation coming from point like sources in the Universe. GRBs have been seen in connection with Type 1c supernovae. Their isotropical equivalent energy released in gamma rays is in some cases above 10 54 erg, but the engine creating this energy is unknown. In this thesis several models for the engine are explored. It is shown that cannonballs can in principle form from hyperaccreting disks, however the cannonball model requires almost all supernovae to create cannonballs, and our finding then implies that a hyperaccreting disk is a natural consequence in most supernovae, a notion which remains to be confirmed. General relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the collapsar model have been performed. Within our setup we found that the duration of the collapsar is too short to explain GRBs, and the energy output is not sufficient. Also the supernova connection could not be explained. I find that the more likely candidate for the GRB engine is an accreting quark star. A quark star has a maximum mass, if the mass increases above this the star will collapse to a black hole. This allows for a two stage engine that might be able to explain features observed in GRBs. |
