Theoretical Implications of Optical and X-ray Observations of Swift GRB Afterglows

Details Theoretical Implications of Optical and X-ray Observations of Swift GRB Afterglows Theoretical Implications of Optical and X-ray Observations of Swift GRB Afterglows

Aug 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aipc..924...58p&link_type=abstract

THE MULTICOLORED LANDSCAPE OF COMPACT OBJECTS AND THEIR EXPLOSIVE ORIGINS. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 924, pp. 58-65 (2

Physics

Gamma-Ray Sources, Gamma-Ray Bursts, X- And Gamma-Ray Telescopes And Instrumentation, X-Ray

Scientific paper

The Swift satellite has measured the X-ray emission of GRB afterglows starting from the burst epoch, filling thus a gap of about 2 decades in the temporal coverage of X-ray afterglows previously achieved. At the same time, the accurate localizations provided by Swift and their rapid dissemination has allowed ground-based telescopes to monitor the optical afterglow emission at comparably early epochs. Such optical and X-ray observations allows us to test more thoroughly the basic predictions of the relativistic blast-wave. Perhaps it is not an understatement to say that there were more surprises than anyone expected. A majority of Swift X-ray afterglows exhibit a slow-decay phase from 500 s to about 1 h after trigger, which indicates a long-lived process of energy injection into the blast-wave. At around 1 h, the X-ray decay steepens, indicating the end of significant energy addition to the forward shock. This steeper decay is consistent with the blast-wave model expectations but the 1 h break is, generally, not accompanied by a steepening of the optical light-curve, which indicates that forward-shock microphysical parameters are not constant, as was previously assumed and allowed by afterglow observations. A subsequent steepening of the X-ray light-curve decay, at about 1 d, was observed by Swift for only a few afterglows. This second break appears consistent with originating from the blast-wave collimation (a jet), but a better optical coverage is required to test that it is, indeed, a jet-break. Although the jet model has been the subject of many tens of papers, pre-Swift optical and X-ray observations of GRB afterglows have provided little proof that the 1 d optical breaks observed in a dozen afterglows are consistent with the expectations for a collimated outflow.

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