32,256 research outputs found
On the Kinetic Energy and Radiative Efficiency of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Using measured X-ray luminosities to 17 Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) during the
afterglow phase and accounting for radiative losses, we calculate the kinetic
energy of these bursts and investigate its relation to other GRB properties. We
then use the observed radiated energy during the prompt phase to determine the
radiative efficiency of these bursts, and explore how the efficiency relates to
other GRB observables. We find that the kinetic energy in the afterglow phase
is directly correlated with the radiated energy, total energy as well as
possibly the jet opening angle and spectral peak energy. More importantly, we
find the intriguing fact that the efficiency is correlated with the radiated
energy, and mildly with the total energy, jet opening angle and spectral peak
energy. XRF020903 also seems to follow the trends we find for our GRB sample.
We discuss the implications of these results for the GRB radiation and jet
models.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; Revised version, accepted to Ap
The First Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope GRB Afterglow Catalog
We present the first Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) gamma-ray
burst (GRB) afterglow catalog. The catalog contains data from over 64,000
independent UVOT image observations of 229 GRBs first detected by Swift, the
High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE2), the INTErnational Gamma-Ray
Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), and the Interplanetary Network (IPN). The
catalog covers GRBs occurring during the period from 2005 Jan 17 to 2007 Jun 16
and includes ~86% of the bursts detected by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope
(BAT). The catalog provides detailed burst positional, temporal, and
photometric information extracted from each of the UVOT images. Positions for
bursts detected at the 3-sigma-level are provided with a nominal accuracy,
relative to the USNO-B1 catalog, of ~0.25 arcseconds. Photometry for each burst
is given in three UV bands, three optical bands, and a 'white' or open filter.
Upper limits for magnitudes are reported for sources detected below 3-sigma.
General properties of the burst sample and light curves, including the
filter-dependent temporal slopes, are also provided. The majority of the UVOT
light curves, for bursts detected at the 3-sigma-level, can be fit by a single
power-law, with a median temporal slope (alpha) of 0.96, beginning several
hundred seconds after the burst trigger and ending at ~1x10^5 s. The median
UVOT v-band (~5500 Angstroms) magnitude at 2000 s for a sample of "well"
detected bursts is 18.02. The UVOT flux interpolated to 2000 s after the burst,
shows relatively strong correlations with both the prompt Swift BAT fluence,
and the Swift X-ray flux at 11 hours after the trigger.Comment: 60 pages, 17 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication by the
Astrophysical Journa
The Bursty Star Formation Histories of Low-mass Galaxies at Revealed by Star Formation Rates Measured from H and FUV
We investigate the burstiness of star formation histories (SFHs) of galaxies
at by using the ratio of star formation rates (SFRs) measured from
H and FUV (1500 \AA) (H--to--FUV ratio). Our sample contains 164
galaxies down to stellar mass (M*) of in the CANDELS GOODS-N
region, where Team Keck Redshift Survey DEIMOS spectroscopy and HST/WFC3 F275W
images from CANDELS and Hubble Deep UV Legacy Survey are available. When the
{\it ratio} of H- and FUV-derived SFRs is measured, dust extinction
correction is negligible (except for very dusty galaxies) with the Calzetti
attenuation curve. The H--to--FUV ratio of our sample increases with M*
and SFR. The median ratio is 0.7 at M* (or SFR) and increases to 1 at M* (or SFR
). At M*, our median H--to--FUV
ratio is lower than that of local galaxies at the same M*, implying a redshift
evolution. Bursty SFH on a timescale of a few tens of megayears on galactic
scales provides a plausible explanation of our results, and the importance of
the burstiness increases as M* decreases. Due to sample selection effects, our
H--to--FUV ratio may be an upper limit of the true value of a complete
sample, which strengthens our conclusions. Other models, e.g., non-universal
initial mass function or stochastic star formation on star cluster scales, are
unable to plausibly explain our results.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. ApJ accepted. The main conclusions are not
changed. Major modifications include: (1) to be consistent with the
literature, now reporting H\beta--to--FUV ratio (rather than FUV--to--H\beta\
in the first version); (2) detailed discussions on dust extinction
correction; (3) new SF bustiness calculation; and (4) enriched discussions in
Introductio
Testing the Universal Structured Jet Models of Gamma-Ray Bursts by BATSE Observations
Assuming that the observed gamma-ray burst (GRB) rate as a function of
redshift is proportional to a corrected star formation rate, we derive the
empirical distribution of the viewing angles of long BATSE GRBs, , and the distribution of these bursts in the plane of
against redshift, , by using a tight correlation between
) and ). Our results show that
is well fitted by a log-normal distribution centering at with a width of . We test different
universal structured jet models by comparing model predictions with our
empirical results. To make the comparisons reasonable, an "effective"
threshold, which corresponds to the sample selection criteria of the long GRB
sample, is used. We find that the predictions of a two-Gaussian jet model are
roughly consistent with our empirical results. A brief discussion shows that
cosmological effect on the relation does not
significantly affect our results, but sample selection effects on this
relationship might significantly influence our results.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A
Is the Redshift Clustering of Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts Significant?
The 26 long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with known redshifts form a
distinct cosmological set, selected differently than other cosmological probes
such as quasars and galaxies. Since the progenitors are now believed to be
connected with active star-formation and since burst emission penetrates dust,
one hope is that with a uniformly-selected sample, the large-scale redshift
distribution of GRBs can help constrain the star-formation history of the
Universe. However, we show that strong observational biases in ground-based
redshift discovery hamper a clean determination of the large-scale GRB rate and
hence the connection of GRBs to the star formation history. We then focus on
the properties of the small-scale (clustering) distribution of GRB redshifts.
When corrected for heliocentric motion relative to the local Hubble flow, the
observed redshifts appear to show a propensity for clustering: 8 of 26 GRBs
occurred within a recession velocity difference of 1000 km/s of another GRB.
That is, 4 pairs of GRBs occurred within 30 h_65^-1 Myr in cosmic time, despite
being causally separated on the sky. We investigate the significance of this
clustering. Comparison of the numbers of close redshift pairs expected from the
simulation with that observed shows no significant small-scale clustering
excess in the present sample; however, the four close pairs occur only in about
twenty percent of the simulated datasets (the precise significance of the
clustering is dependent upon the modeled biases). We conclude with some
impetuses and suggestions for future precise GRB redshift measurements.Comment: Published in the Astronomical Journal, June 2003: see
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2003AJ....125.2865
ZFIRE: Using H equivalent widths to investigate the in situ initial mass function at z~2
We use the ZFIRE survey (http://zfire.swinburne.edu.au) to investigate the
high mass slope of the initial mass function (IMF) for a mass-complete
(log10(M/M)~9.3) sample of 102 star-forming galaxies at z~2 using
their H equivalent widths (H-EW) and rest-frame optical
colours. We compare dust-corrected H-EW distributions with predictions
of star-formation histories (SFH) from PEGASE.2 and Starburst99 synthetic
stellar population models. We find an excess of high H-EW galaxies that
are up to 0.3--0.5 dex above the model-predicted Salpeter IMF locus and the
H-EW distribution is much broader (10--500 \AA) than can easily be
explained by a simple monotonic SFH with a standard Salpeter-slope IMF. Though
this discrepancy is somewhat alleviated when it is assumed that there is no
relative attenuation difference between stars and nebular lines, the result is
robust against observational biases, and no single IMF (i.e. non-Salpeter
slope) can reproduce the data. We show using both spectral stacking and Monte
Carlo simulations that starbursts cannot explain the EW distribution. We
investigate other physical mechanisms including models with variations in
stellar rotation, binary star evolution, metallicity, and the IMF upper-mass
cutoff. IMF variations and/or highly rotating extreme metal poor stars
(Z~0.1Z) with binary interactions are the most plausible explanations
for our data. If the IMF varies, then the highest H-EWs would require
very shallow slopes (>-1.0) with no one slope able to reproduce the
data. Thus, the IMF would have to vary stochastically. We conclude that the
stellar populations at z~2 show distinct differences from local populations and
there is no simple physical model to explain the large variation in
H-EWs at z~2.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. 43 pages, 27 Figures. Survey website:
http://zfire.swinburne.edu.au
GRB Energetics and the GRB Hubble Diagram: Promises and Limitations
We present a complete sample of 29 GRBs for which it has been possible to
determine temporal breaks (or limits) from their afterglow light curves. We
interpret these breaks within the framework of the uniform conical jet model,
incorporating realistic estimates of the ambient density and propagating error
estimates on the measured quantities. In agreement with our previous analysis
of a smaller sample, the derived jet opening angles of those 16 bursts with
redshifts result in a narrow clustering of geometrically-corrected gamma-ray
energies about E_gamma = 1.33e51 erg; the burst-to-burst variance about this
value is a factor of 2.2. Despite this rather small scatter, we demonstrate in
a series of GRB Hubble diagrams, that the current sample cannot place
meaningful constraints upon the fundamental parameters of the Universe. Indeed
for GRBs to ever be useful in cosmographic measurements we argue the necessity
of two directions. First, GRB Hubble diagrams should be based upon fundamental
physical quantities such as energy, rather than empirically-derived and
physically ill-understood distance indicators. Second, a more homogeneous set
should be constructed by culling sub-classes from the larger sample. These
sub-classes, though now first recognizable by deviant energies, ultimately must
be identifiable by properties other than those directly related to energy. We
identify a new sub-class of GRBs (``f-GRBs'') which appear both underluminous
by factors of at least 10 and exhibit a rapid fading at early times. About
10-20% of observed long-duration bursts appear to be f-GRBs.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal (20 May 2003). 19 pages, 3
Postscript figure
MOIRCS Deep Survey V: A Universal Relation for Stellar Mass and Surface Brightness of Galaxies
We present a universal linear correlation between the stellar mass and
surface brightness (SB) of galaxies at 0.3<z<3, using a deep K-band selected
catalog in the GOODS-North region. The correlation has a nearly constant slope,
independent of redshift and color of galaxies in the rest-z frame. Considering
unresolved compact galaxies, the tight correlation gives a lower boundary of SB
for a given stellar mass; lower SB galaxies are prohibited over the boundary.
The universal slope suggests that the stellar mass in galaxies was build up
over their cosmic histories in a similar manner irrelevant to galaxy mass, as
oppose to the scenario that massive galaxies mainly accumulated their stellar
mass by major merging. In contrast, SB shows a strong dependence on redshift
for a given stellar mass. It evolves as (1+z)^(-2.0~-0.8), in addition to
dimming as (1+z)^4 by the cosmological expansion effect. The brightening
depends on galaxy color and stellar mass. The blue population (rest-frame
U-V<0), which is dominated by young and star-forming galaxies, evolves as
~(1+z)^(-0.8 +-0.3) in the rest-V band. On the other hand, the red population
(U-V>0) and the massive galaxies (M_*>10^(10)M_sun) shows stronger brightening,
(1+z)^(-1.5+-0.1). Based on the comparison with galaxy evolution models, we
find that the phenomena are well explained by the pure luminosity evolution of
galaxies out to z~3.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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