The visibility of gamma-ray burst afterglows in dusty star-forming regions

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

11 pages, 6 figures, minor changes, matches version published in MNRAS

Scientific paper

10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.04545.x

Recent observations of the environments of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) favour massive stars as their progenitors, which are likely to be surrounded by gas and dust. The visibility of the optical and UV emission of a GRB are expected to depend on the characteristics of both the dust and the GRB emission itself. A reasonable distribution of surrounding dust is capable of absorbing all the optical and UV emission of the optical flash and afterglow of a GRB, unless the optical flash has a peak isotropic luminosity L_peak > 10^49 erg/s. This means that dark bursts should exist and these bursts will have to be studied at infrared rather than optical wavelengths. In this paper details will be given about the infrared GRB dust emission. The reprocessed dust emission peaks at a rest-frame wavelength of about 8 micron. Forthcoming space telescopes, in particular the IRAC camera aboard the Space Infrared Telescope Facility could detect this emission out to a redshift of about 2. However, an accurate position of the GRB afterglow must be provided for this emission to be identified, because the light curve of the reprocessed dust emission does not vary on time-scales less than several years.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

The visibility of gamma-ray burst afterglows in dusty star-forming regions does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The visibility of gamma-ray burst afterglows in dusty star-forming regions, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The visibility of gamma-ray burst afterglows in dusty star-forming regions will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-534045

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.