X-ray flares in the early Swift observations of the possible naked gamma-ray burst 050421

Details X-ray flares in the early Swift observations of the possible naked gamma-ray burst 050421 X-ray flares in the early Swift observations of the possible naked gamma-ray burst 050421

Jun 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006a%26a...452..819g&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 452, Issue 3, June IV 2006, pp.819-825

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

19

Gamma Ray: Bursts

Scientific paper

We present the Swift observations of the faint burst GRB 050421. The X-ray light-curve shows at least two flares: the first flare peaking at ~110 s after the BAT trigger (T_0) and the second one peaking at ~154 s. The first flare presents a flux variation of δ F/Fpeak ˜ 3.7 and a short timescale ratio δ t/tpeak ˜ 0.07. The second flare is smaller and presents a flux variation of δ F/Fpeak ˜ 1.7 and a short timescale ratio δ t/tpeak ˜ 0.03. We argue that the mechanism producing these flares is probably late internal shocks. The X-ray light-curve is consistent with a rapid decline with a temporal index α˜ 3.1, which decays from ~10-9 erg cm-2 s-1 at T_0+100 s to < 7× 10-13 erg cm-2 s-1 at T_0+900 s. A possible spectral softening is also observed with time, from β ˜ 0.1 to ˜ 1.2. A good joint fit to the BAT and XRT spectra before T_0+171 s with βXRT-BAT˜ 0.2 indicates that the early X-ray and Gamma-ray emissions are likely produced by the same mechanism. We argue that the X-ray spectral softening, if any, is due to a shift of the peak of the prompt emission spectrum down to lower energies, and that the rapid decline of the X-ray emission is probably the tail of the prompt emission. This suggests that the X-ray emission is completely dominated by high latitude radiation and the external shock, if any, is extremely faint and below the detection threshold. GRB 050421 is likely the first “naked burst” detected by Swift.

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