Modeling Gamma-ray burst Afterglow observations with an Off-axis Jet emission
Nissim Fraija, Antonio Galvan-Gamez, Boris Betancourt Kamenetskaia, Maria G. Dainotti, Simone Dichiara, P. Veres, Rosa L. Becerra, A. C. Caligula do E. S. Pedreira
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36 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are fascinating extragalactic objects. They represent a fantastic opportunity to investigate unique properties not exhibited in other sources. Multi-wavelength afterglow observations from some short- and long-duration GRBs reveal an atypical long-lasting emission that evolves differently from the canonical afterglow light curves favoring the off-axis emission. We present an analytical synchrotron afterglow scenario, and the hydrodynamical evolution of an off-axis top-hat jet decelerated in a stratified surrounding environment. The analytical synchrotron afterglow model is shown during the coasting, deceleration (off- and on-axis emission), and the post-jet-break decay phases, and the hydrodynamical evolution is computed by numerical simulations showing the time evolution of the Doppler factor, the half-opening angle, the bulk Lorentz factor, and the deceleration radius. We show that numerical simulations are in good agreement with those derived with our analytical approach. We apply the current synchrotron model and describe successfully the delayed non-thermal emission observed in a sample of long and short GRBs with evidence of off-axis emission. Furthermore, we provide constraints on the possible afterglow emission by requiring the multi-wavelength upper limits derived for the closest Swift-detected GRBs and promising gravitational-wave events.
A review is given on the various aspects of gamma-ray burst afterglow observations, and the inferences derived from the data. After a short history of optical transient search and the BeppoSAX discoveries, the main topics included are prompt multiwavelength emission, dark bursts, spectral lines line and continuum variability, the early light curve behaviour, jet breaks, X-ray flares, late afterglow features, polarization, and orphan afterglows.
The well-sampled afterglows of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) not associated with a supernova (SN) explosion, can be scaled down to a simple dimensionless universal formula, which describes well their temporal behavior. Such SN-less GRBs include short hard bursts (SHBs) and long SN-less GRBs. The universal temporal behavior of their afterglows is that expected from a pulsar wind nebula powered by the rotational energy loss of the newly born pulsar.
We investigate the intrinsic properties of a sample of bright (E_iso > 10^52 erg) gamma-ray bursts, comparing those with and without radio afterglows. We find that the sample of bursts with no radio afterglows has a significantly shorter mean intrinsic duration of the prompt gamma-ray radiation, and the distribution of this duration is significantly different from those bursts with a radio afterglow. Although the sample with no radio afterglow has on average lower isotropic energy, the lack of radio afterglow does not appear to be a result of simply energetics of the burst, but a reflection of…
The main FRB event may leave behind a clump of relativistic plasma with high ``free energy'' density. As the plasma undergoes collisionless relaxation, it emits coherent electromagnetic waves. These electromagnetic waves may be observable as a fast radio afterglow, with decreasing frequency and intensity. We demonstrate the fast coherent afterglow in a numerical experiment. We tentatively predict the peak afterglow frequency decreasing with time as $ν\propto t^{-3/2}$.
The 'jet-break' in the X-ray afterglow of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) appears to be correlated to other properties of the X-ray afterglow and the prompt gamma ray emission, but the correlations are at odds with those predicted by the conical fireball model of GRBs. The correlations are in good agreement, however, with those predicted by the Cannonball model of GRBs.
We present the discovery of two distinct classes in the Swift short duration gamma-ray bursts (S-GRBs) from the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) X-ray afterglow light curve. We find that about 40% of the Swift S-GRBs have an X-ray afterglow light curves which only lasts less than 10000 seconds after the burst trigger (hereafter short-lived S-GRBs). On the other hand, another 60% of S-GRBs have a long lasting X-ray afterglow light curve which resembles the long duration gamma-ray bursts. We also find that none of the short-lived S-GRBs shows the extended emission in the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) energy …
A radio source that faded over six days, with a redshift of $z\approx0.5$ host, has been identified by Keane et al. (2016) as the transient afterglow to a fast radio burst (FRB 150418). We report follow-up radio and optical observations of the afterglow candidate and find a source that is consistent with an active galactic nucleus. If the afterglow candidate is nonetheless a prototypical FRB afterglow, existing slow-transient surveys limit the fraction of FRBs that produce afterglows to 0.25 for afterglows with fractional variation, $m=2|S_1-S_2|/(S_1+S_2)\geq0.7$, and 0.07 for $m\geq1$, at 95…
Long gamma-ray bursts show an afterglow emission in the X-rays, optical, and radio wavelengths with luminosities that fade with time with a nearly identical power-law behavior. In this talk, I present an analytic treatment that shows that this afterglow is produced by synchrotron radiation from the supernova ejecta associated with binary-driven hypernovae.
It is by now fairly well established that gamma-ray burst afterglows result from initially relativistic outflows interacting with the medium surrounding the burster and emitting non-thermal radiation ranging from radio to X-rays. However, beyond that, many big and small questions remain about afterglows, with the accumulating amount of observational data at the various frequencies raising as many questions as they answer. In this review I highlight a number of current theoretical issues and how they fit or do not fit within our basic theoretical framework. In addition to theoretical progress I…
The various stages of baryonic gamma-ray burst afterglow blast waves are reviewed. These are responsible for the afterglow emission from which much of our understanding of gamma-ray bursts derives. Initially, the blast waves are confined to the dense medium surrounding the burster (stellar envelope or dense wind), giving rise to a jet-cocoon structure. A massive ejecta is released and potentially fed by ongoing energy release from the burster and a forward-reverse shock system is set up between ejecta and ambient density. Ultimately the blast wave spreads sideways and slows down, and the domin…
The temporal evolution of the spectral break in the time resolved spectral energy density of the broad band afterglow of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) 091127 and 080319B was shown recently to be inconsistent with that expected for the cooling break in the standard fireball model of GRBs. Here we show that it is, however, in good agreement with the predicted temporal evolution of the smooth injection break/bend in the cannonball model of GRBs.
Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts often show flares, plateaus, and sudden intensity drops: these temporal features are difficult to explain as coming from the forward shock. We calculate radiative properties of early GRB afterglows with the dominant contribution from the reverse shock (RS) propagating in an ultra-relativistic (pulsar-like) wind produced by the long-lasting central engine. RS emission occurs in the fast cooling regime -- this ensures high radiative efficiency and allows fast intensity variations. We demonstrate that: (i) mild wind power, of the order of $\sim 10^{46}$ erg s$^{-1}$…
The recently discovered rapid transient GN-z11-flash has been suggested to be the prompt-emission ultraviolet flash associated with a gamma-ray burst serendipitously exploding in the ultra-high-$z$ galaxy GN-z11. We here place the flash into the context of the early ultraviolet emission of gamma-ray bursts, and find it is in agreement with the luminosity distribution of these events.
The late-time high-resolution X-ray and radio observations of GRB980425/SN1998bw, the closest known gamma ray burst (GRB) associated with a supernova (SN) explosion, may have actually resolved the hyperluminal source that produced the GRB and its afterglow. Its hyperluminal speed ~350c is consistent with that expected in the cannonball (CB) model of GRBs. The observed superluminal expansion of the late-time radio image of GRB030329/SN2003dh, the GRB with the brightest and longest followed up radio afterglow to date, is also consistent with that expected in the CB model of GRBs and extrapolates…
Strong spectral softening has been revealed in the late X-ray afterglows of some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The scenario of X-ray scattering around circum-burst dusty medium has been supported by previous works due to its overall successful prediction of both the temporal and spectral evolution of some X-ray afterglows. To further investigate the observed feature of spectral softening, we now systematically search the X-ray afterglows detected by X-Ray Telescope (XRT) of Swift and collect twelve GRBs with significant late-time spectral softening. We find that dust scattering could be the dominan…
Recent analytical and numerical work argue that successful relativistic Fermi acceleration requires a weak magnetization of the unshocked plasma, all the more so at high Lorentz factors. The present paper tests this conclusion by computing the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst outflow propagating in a magnetized stellar wind using "ab initio" principles regarding the microphysics of relativistic Fermi acceleration. It is shown that in magnetized environments, one expects a drop-out in the X-ray band on sub-day scales as the synchrotron emission of the shock heated electrons exits the frequency ba…
GRB 090926A was detected by both the GBM and LAT instruments on-board the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Swift follow-up observations began ~13 hours after the initial trigger. The optical afterglow was detected for nearly 23 days post trigger, placing it in the long lived category. The afterglow is of particular interest due to its brightness at late times, as well as the presence of optical flares at T0+10^5 s and later, which may indicate late-time central engine activity. The LAT has detected a total of 16 GRBs; 9 of these bursts, including GRB 090926A, also have been observed by Swift. …
We show that the photospheres of "failed" Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), whose bulk Lorentz factors are much lower than 100, can be outside of internal shocks. The resulting radiation from the photospheres is thermal and bright in UV/Soft X-ray band. The photospheric emission lasts for about one thousand seconds with luminosity about several times 10^46 erg/s. These events can be observed by current and future satellites. It is also shown that the afterglows of failed GRBs are peculiar at the early stage, which makes it possible to distinguish failed GRBs from ordinary GRBs and beaming-induced orpha…
We present a study of the intermediate regime between ultra-relativistic and nonrelativistic flow for gamma-ray burst afterglows. The hydrodynamics of spherically symmetric blast waves is numerically calculated using the AMRVAC adaptive mesh refinement code. Spectra and light curves are calculated using a separate radiation code that, for the first time, links a parametrisation of the microphysics of shock acceleration, synchrotron self-absorption and electron cooling to a high-performance hydrodynamics simulation.
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) observed up to redshifts $z>8$ are fascinating objects to study due to their still unexplained relativistic outburst mechanisms and a possible use to test cosmological models. Our analysis of 77 GRB afterglows with known redshifts revealed a physical subsample of long GRBs with canonical {\it plateau breaking to power-law} light curves with a significant {\it luminosity $L^*_X$ - break time $T^*_a$} correlation in the GRB rest frame. This subsample forms approximately the {\it upper envelope} of the studied distribution. We have also found a similar relation for a small …
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) associated with gravitational wave events are, and will likely continue to be, viewed at a larger inclination than GRBs without gravitational wave detections. As demonstrated by the afterglow of GW170817, this requires an extension of the common GRB afterglow models which typically assume emission from an on-axis top hat jet. We present a characterization of the afterglows arising from structured jets, providing a framework covering both successful and choked jets. We compute new closure relations for structured jets and compare with the established relations for energy…
The physical nature of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is not identified. Detecting electromagnetic counterparts in other wavelengths is essential to measure their distances and to settle down their physical nature. Assuming that at least some of them are of a cosmological origin, we calculate their afterglow lightcurves in multi-wavelengths (X-rays, optical and radio) by assuming a range of their total kinetic energies and redshifts. We focus on forward shock emission, but also consider the possibility that some of them might have bright reverse shock emission. In general, the FRB afterglows are too…
Plateaus are common in X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts. Among a few scenarios for the origin of them, the leading one is that there exists a magnetar inside and persistently injects its spin-down energy into an afterglow. In previous studies, the radiation efficiency of this process is assumed to be a constant $\gtrsim0.1$, which is quite simple and strong. In this work we obtain the efficiency from a physical point of view and find that this efficiency strongly depends on the injected luminosity. One implication of this result is that those X-ray afterglow light curves which show steeper…
The three gravitational wave events detected by LIGO are opening a new era for high- energy astrophysics. Nevertheless, location of such events remain unknown. A promising solution to the localization problem is to find an electromagnetic (EM) counterpart of GW- generating events, such as binary neutron star mergers (BNS). Indeed, their GW emission will be above sensitivity threshold in the near future. BNS are also considered as short Gamma Ray Bursts (sGRB) progenitors. However, sGRB are highly beamed. In this study, we will therefore focus on another EM counterpart candidate: the cocoon aft…
About 15% of Gamma Ray Bursts have precursors, i.e. emission episodes preceding the main event, whose spectral and temporal properties are similar to the main emission. We propose that precursors have their own fireball, producing afterglow emission due to the dissipation of the kinetic energy via external shock. In the time lapse between the precursor and the main event, we assume that the central engine is not completely turned off, but it continues to eject relativistic material at a smaller rate, whose emission is below the background level. The precursor fireball generates a first aftergl…
We present VLBI and archival Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) observations of the radio afterglow from the gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 2003 March 29 (GRB 030329) taken between 672 and 2032 days after the burst. The EVLA and WSRT data suggest a simple power law decay in the flux at 5 GHz, with no clear signature of any rebrightening from the counter jet. We report an unresolved source at day 2032 of size $1.18\pm0.13$ mas, which we use in conjunction with the expansion rate of the burst to argue for the presence of a uniform, ISM-like circumburs…
We discuss the inhomogeneous behavior of gamma-ray burst afterglow light curves in optic. We use well-sampled light curves based on mostly our own observations to find and identify deviations (inhomogeneities) from broken power law. By the inhomogeneous behavior we mean flashes, bumps,slow deviations from power law (wiggles) in a light curve. In particular we report parameters of broken power law, describe phenomenology, compare optical light curves with X-ray ones and classify the inhomogeneities. We show that the duration of the inhomogeneities correlates with their peak time relative to gam…
We investigated the main prompt and afterglow emission parameters of gamma-ray bursts detected by the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and X-Ray Telescope installed on the Swift satellite. Our aim was to look for differences or connections between the different types of gamma-ray bursts, so we compared the BAT fluences, 1-sec peak photon fluxes, photon indices, XRT early fluxes, initial temporal decay and spectral indices. We found that there might be a connection between the XRT initial decay index and XRT early flux/BAT photon index. Using statistical tools we also determined that beside the dura…
We consider a sample of 107 Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) for which early UV emission was measured by Swift, and extrapolate the photon intensity to lower energies. Protons accelerated in the GRB jet may interact with such photons to produce charged pions and subsequently ultra high energy neutrinos $\varepsilon_ν\geq 10^{16}$ eV. We use simple energy conversion efficiency arguments to predict the maximal neutrino flux expected from each GRB. We estimate the neutrino detection rate at large area radio based neutrino detectors and conclude that the early afterglow neutrino emission is too weak to be …
A number of correlations between observables have been found to exist for gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows, linking ejecta energy to prompt and afterglow energy release and linking early stage optical and X-ray luminosity to the end times of these stages. Here, these correlations are compared to thick and thin shell models for GRB afterglows. In the thick shell model, the time evolution of the underlying relativistic blast wave is still influenced by the original ejecta, while in the thin shell model most energy in the explosion has been transferred to the external medium. It is shown here tha…
The short burst GRB 130912A was detected by Swift, Fermi satellites and several ground-based optical telescopes. Its X-ray light curve decayed with time normally. The optical emission, however, displayed a long term plateau, which is the longest one in current short GRB observations. In this work we examine the physical origin of the X-ray and optical emission of this peculiar event. We find that the canonical forward shock afterglow emission model can account for the X-ray and optical data self-consistently and the energy injection model that has been widely adopted to interpret the shallowly…
Aims: We characterize a sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts with low luminosity X-ray afterglows (LLA GRBs), and study their properties. Method: We select a sample consisting of the 12\% faintest X-ray afterglows from the total population of long GRBs (lGRBs) with known redshift. We study their intrinsic properties (spectral index, decay index, distance, luminosity, isotropic radiated energy and peak energy) to assess whether they belong to the same population than the brighter afterglow events. Results: We present strong evidences that these events belong to a population of nearby events, different fr…
This review focuses on the physics of Gamma Ray Bursts probed through their radio afterglow emission. Even though radio band is the least explored of the afterglow spectrum, it has played an important role in the progress of GRB physics, specifically in confirming the hypothesized relativistic effects. Currently radio astronomy is in the beginning of a revolution. The high sensitive Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is being planned, its precursors and pathfinders are about to be operational, and several existing instruments are undergoing upgradation. Thus, the afterglow detection statistics and r…
The afterglow emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is a valuable source of information to understand the physics of these energetic explosions. The blast wave model has become the standard to describe the evolution of the afterglow emission over time and frequency. Thanks to recent developments in the theory of afterglows and numerical simulations of relativistic outflows, we are able to model the afterglow emission with realistic dynamics and radiative processes. Although the models agree with observations remarkably well, the afterglow emission still contains additional physics, instrumenta…
Context: Thirteen years after the discovery of the first afterglows, the nature of dark gamma-ray bursts (GRB) still eludes explanation: while each ng-duration GRB typically has an X-ray afterglow, optical/NIR emission is only seen for 40-60% of them. Aim: Here we use the afterglow detection statistics of the systematic follow-up observations performed with GROND since mid-2007 in order to derive the fraction of "dark bursts" according to different methods, and to distinguish between various scenarios for "dark bursts". Method: Observations were performed with the 7-channel "Gamma-Ray Optical …
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), associated with the collapse of massive stars or the collisions of compact objects, are the most luminous events in our universe. However, there is still much to learn about the nature of the relativistic jets launched from the central engines of these objects. We examine how jet structure - that is, the energy and velocity distribution as a function of angle - affects observed GRB afterglow light curves. Using the package afterglowpy, we compute light curves arising from an array of possible jet structures, and present the suite of models that can fit the coincident e…
The optical light-curves of GRB afterglows display either peaks or plateaus. We identify 16 afterglows of the former type, 17 of the latter, and 4 with broad peaks, that could be of either type. The optical energy release of these two classes is similar and is correlated with the GRB output, the correlation being stronger for peaky afterglows, which suggests that the burst and afterglow emissions of peaky afterglows are from the same relativistic ejecta and that the optical emission of afterglows with plateaus arises more often from ejecta that did not produce the burst emission. Consequently,…
The optical light that is generated simultaneously with the x-rays and gamma-rays during a gamma-ray burst (GRB) provides clues about the nature of the explosions that occur as massive stars collapse to form black holes. We report on the bright optical flash and fading afterglow from the powerful burst GRB 130427A and present a comparison with the properties of the gamma-ray emission that show correlation of the optical and >100 MeV photon flux light curves during the first 7,000 seconds. We attribute this correlation to co-generation in an external shock. The simultaneous, multi-color, optica…
The peak time of optical afterglow may be used as a proxy to constrain the Lorentz factor Gamma of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) ejecta. We revisit this method by including bursts with optical observations that started when the afterglow flux was already decaying; these bursts can provide useful lower limits on Gamma. Combining all analyzed bursts in our sample, we find that the previously reported correlation between Gamma and the burst luminosity L_gamma does not hold. However, the data clearly shows a lower bound Gamma_min which increases with L_gamma. We suggest an explanation for this feature…
Advances in our numerical and theoretical understanding of gamma-ray burst afterglow processes allow us to construct models capable of dealing with complex relativistic jet dynamics and non-thermal emission, that can be compared directly to data from instruments such as Swift. Because afterglow blast waves and power law spectra are intrinsically scale-invariant under changes of explosion energy and medium density, templates can be generated from large-scale hydrodynamics simulations. This allows for iterative template-based model fitting using the physical model parameters (quantifying the pro…
The nature of the shallow decay phase in the X-ray afterglow of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) is not yet clarified. We analyze the data of early X-ray afterglows of 26 GRBs triggered by Burst Alert Telescope onboard Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and subsequently detected by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and/or Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. It is found that 9 events (including 2 out of 3 very-high-energy gamma-ray events) have no shallow decay phase and that their X-ray afterglow light curves are well described by single power-law model except for the jet break at later epoch. The r…
Many gamma-ray bursts are followed by periods of extended emission. At least in some cases, the burst afterglow may be powered by a rapidly rotating, highly-magnetised neutron star, which spins down due to electromagnetic and gravitational wave emission. Such a remnant is likely to strongly precess in the early stages of its life, which would lead to modulations in the X-ray luminosity as the triaxiality of the system evolves over time. Using a radiation profile appropriate for a precessing, oblique rotator, we find that Swift-XRT data of a long (080602) and a short (090510) burst matches the …
Jet precessions are widely involved in astrophysical phenomena from galaxies to X-ray binaries and gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Polarization presents a unique probe of the magnetic fields in GRB jets. The precession of GRBs relativistic jets will change the geometry within the observable emitting region of the jet, which can potentially affect the polarization of the afterglow. In this paper, we take into account jet precession to study the polarization evolution and corresponding light curves in GRB early optical afterglows with ordered and random magnetic field geometries. We find that the jet p…
We analyze the Swift/BAT sample of short gamma-ray bursts, using an objective Bayesian Block procedure to extract temporal descriptors of the bursts' initial pulse complexes (IPCs). The sample comprises 12 and 41 bursts with and without extended emission (EE) components, respectively. IPCs of non-EE bursts are dominated by single pulse structures, while EE bursts tend to have two or more pulse structures. The medians of characteristic timescales - durations, pulse structure widths, and peak intervals - for EE bursts are factors of ~ 2-3 longer than for non-EE bursts. A trend previously reporte…
Context: Swift observations suggest that the X-ray afterglow emission of some gamma-ray bursts (GRB) may have internal origins, and the conventional external shock (ES) cannot be the exclusive source of the afterglow emission. Aims: If the central compact objects of some GRBs are millisecond magentars, the magnetar winds could play an important role in the (internal) X-ray afterglow emission, which is our focus here. Methods: The dynamics and the synchrotron radiation of the termination shock (TS) of the magmnetar winds, as well as the simultaneous GRB ES, are investigated by considering the m…
We study thermal emission from circumstellar structures heated by gamma-ray burst (GRB) radiation and ejecta and calculate its contribution to GRB optical and X-ray afterglows using the modified radiation hydro-code small STELLA. It is shown that thermal emission originating in heated dense shells around the GRB progenitor star can reproduce X-ray plateaus (like observed in GRB 050904, 070110) as well as deviations from a power law fading observed in optical afterglows of some GRBs (e.g. 020124, 030328, 030429X, 050904). Thermal radiation pressure in the heated circumburst shell dominates the …
It has been widely recognized that gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows arise from interactions between GRB outflow and circumburst medium, while their evolution follows the behaviors of relativistic shock waves. Assuming the distribution of circumburst medium follows a general power-law form, that is, $n = A_{\ast} R^{-k}$, where $R$ denotes the distance from the burst, it is obvious that the value of density-distribution index $k$ can affect the behaviors of the afterglow. In this paper, we analyze the temporal and spectral behaviors of GRB radio afterglows with arbitrary $k$-values. In the radi…
The hypothesis that short GRBs arise from the coalescence of binary compact stars has recently gained support. With this comes the expectation that the afterglow should bear the characteristic signature of a tenuous intergalactic medium (IGM). However, fits to the observational data suggest that some detected afterglows arise in relatively dense gaseous environments rather than in the low density IGM. Here we show that considering the effect of red giant winds in the core of a star cluster may resolve this paradox if short GRB progenitors are contained in such an environment and close encounte…
We perform calorimetry on the bright gamma ray burst (GRB) 030329 by fitting simultaneously the broadband radio afterglow and the observed afterglow image size to a semi-analytic magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) and afterglow emission model. Our semi-analytic method is valid in both the relativistic and non-relativistic regimes, and incorporates a model of the interstellar scintillation that substantially effects the broadband afterglow below 10 GHz. The model is fitted to archival measurements of the afterglow flux from 1 day to 8.3 years after the burst. Values for the initial burst parameters ar…
Thanks to the advances in robotic telescopes, the time domain astronomy leads to a large number of transient events detected in images every night. Data mining and machine learning tools used for object classification are presented. The goal is to automatically classify transient events for both further follow-up by a larger telescope and for statistical studies of transient events. A special attention is given to the identification of gamma-ray burst afterglows. Machine learning techniques is used to identify GROND gamma-ray burst afterglow among the astrophysical objects present in the SDSS …
With the early afterglow localizations of gamma-ray burst positions made by Swift, the clear delimitation of the prompt phase and the afterglow is not so obvious any more. It is important to see weather the two phases have the same origin or they stem from different parts of the progenitor system. We will combine the two kinds of gamma-ray burst data from the Swift-XRT instrument (windowed timing and photon counting modes) and from BAT. A thorough desription of the applied procedure is given. We apply various binning techniques to the different data: Bayes blocks, exponential binning and signa…
Some fast radio bursts (FRBs) are expected to be associated with the afterglow emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), while a short-lived, supermassive neutron star (NS) forms during the GRBs. I investigate the possible contributions to the dispersion measure (DM) of the FRBs from the GRB ejecta and the wind blown from the precollapsing NS. On the one hand, sometimes an internal X-ray plateau afterglow could be produced by the NS wind, which indicates that a great number of electron-positron pairs are carried by the wind. If the pair-generation radius satisfies a somewhat rigorous condition, the…
Using the generic hydrodynamic model of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) afterglows, we calculate the radio afterglow light curves of low luminosity, high luminosity, failed and standard GRBs in different observational bands of FAST's energy window. The GRBs are assumed to be located at different distances from us. Our results rank the detectability of GRBs in descending order as high luminosity, standard, failed and low luminosity GRBs. We predict that almost all types of radio afterglows except that of low luminosity GRBs could be observed by the large radio telescope as long as the domains of time and…
The X-ray afterglows of GRBs 060413, 060522, 060607A and 080330 are characterized by plateaus that are followed by very sharp drops. An X-ray plateau is interpretable within the framework of the external forward shock model but the sharp drop is not. In this work we interpret these peculiar X-ray afterglow data as the central engine afterglows from some magnetized central engines, plausibly magnetars. In this model, the X-ray afterglows are powered by the internal magnetic energy dissipation and the sudden drop is caused by the collapse of the magnetar. Accordingly, the X-ray plateau photons s…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are likely produced in the shock that is driven as the GRB jet interacts with the external medium. Long-duration GRBs are also associated with powerful supernovae (SNe). We consider the optical and radio afterglows of long GRBs for both blasts viewed along the jet axis ("on-axis" afterglows) and misaligned observes ("off-axis" afterglows). Comparing the optical emission from the afterglow with that of the accompanying SN, using SN 1998bw as an archetype, we find that only a few percent of afterglows viewed off-axis are brighter than the SN. For observable optic…
GRB absorption spectroscopy opened up a new window in the study of the high redshift Universe, especially with the launch of the Swift satellite and the quick and precise localization of the afterglow. Eight-meter class telescopes can be repointed within a few hours from the GRB, enabling the acquisition of high signal-to-noise ratio and high resolution afterglow spectra. In this paper I will give a short review of what we learned through this technique, and I will present some of the first results obtained with the X-shooter spectrograph.
The mechanism responsible for the afterglow emission of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) and its connection to the prompt $γ$-ray emission is still a debated issue. Relations between intrinsic properties of the prompt or afterglow emission can help to discriminate between plausible theoretical models of GRB production. Here we present an overview of the afterglow and prompt-afterglow two parameter relations, their physical interpretations, their use as redshift estimators and as possible cosmological tools. A similar task has already been correctly achieved for Supernovae (SNe) Ia by using the peak mag…
