Bending of a strong-explosion-induced shock wave around a density singularity (as applied to the remnants of hypernovae)

The remnants of hypernovae, which can correspond to cosmological gamma-ray bursts, are analyzed on the basis of the Kompaneets equation in the strong explosion approximation. Exact solutions to the Kompaneets equation are obtained, and the shape of shock-wave fronts from a noncentral point explosion in a medium whose density decreases quadratically with the distance from the density singularity and tends to a constant at large distances. The bending of the shock-wave front around a density singularity is discussed. The results are compared with data on X-ray sources that can correspond to hypernovae. © 2002 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica".