NAKED SINGULARITIES AS CANDIDATES FOR GAMMA-RAY BURSTERS

Naked singularities appear naturally in dynamically evolving solutions of Einstein equations involving gravitational collapse of radiation, dust, and perfect fluids provided the rate of accretion is less than a critical value. We propose that the gamma-ray bursters (GRBs) are examples of these naked singularity solutions. For illustration, we show that according to solutions involving spherically symmetric collapse of pure radiation field, the energy E(gamma) and the observed duration Delta t(0) of a GRB should satisfy, E(gamma)/Delta t(0) less than or equal to 2.28 x 10(58) f(gamma) erg sec(-1), f(gamma) being the fraction (10(-2) to 10(-3)) of energy released as gamma rays and the rest possibly as gravitational waves. All the presently observed GRBs satisfy this condition; those satisfying the condition close to equality must necessarily be of cosmological origin with the red-shift factor z not exceeding similar to 1-10 depending on exact observed flux, red-shift and conversion efficiency of gamma rays. If GRBs are indeed from naked singular regions, they should also be accompanied by a strong burst of gravitational waves which, if detectible, will constitute a basic test for our model.