606 research outputs found
Extremely energetic Fermi Gamma-Ray Bursts obey spectral energy correlations
The extremely energetic Fermi GRBs 080916C, with its Eiso of ~ 10^{55} erg in
1 keV - 10 GeV and intense GeV emission, and 090323 give us a unique
opportunity to test the reliability and extension of spectral energy
correlations. Based on Konus/WIND and Fermi spectral measurements, we find that
both events are fully consistent with the updated (95 events as of April 2009)
Ep,i - Eiso correlation, thus further confirming and extending it and pointing
against a possible flattening or increased dispersion at very high energies.
This also suggests that the physics behind the emission of peculiarly bright
and hard GRBs is the same as for softer and weaker ones. In addition, we find
that the normalization of the correlation obtained by considering these two
GRBs and the other long ones for which Ep,i was measured with high accuracy by
the Fermi/GBM are fully consistent with those obtained by other instruments
(e.g., BeppoSAX, Swift, Konus-WIND), thus indicating that the correlation is
not affected significantly by detectors limited thresholds and energy bands.
Prompted by the extension of the spectrum of GRB 080916C up to several GeVs
without any excess or cut-off, we also investigated if the evaluation of Eiso
in the commonly adopted 1 keV - 10 MeV energy band may bias the Ep,i - Eiso
correlation contributing to its scatter. By computing Eiso from 1 keV to 10
GeV, the slope of the correlation becomes slightly flatter, while its
dispersion does not change significantly. Finally, we find that GRB 080916C is
also consistent with most of the other spectral energy correlations derived
from it, with the possible exception of the Ep,i - Eiso - tb correlation.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, final revised version accepted for pubblication
in Astronomy & Astrophysics (main Journal
Cosmological constraints with GRBs: homogeneous medium vs wind density profile
We present the constraints on the cosmological parameters obtained with the
-- correlation found with the most recent sample of
19 GRBs with spectroscopically measured redshift and well determined prompt
emission spectral and afterglow parameters. We compare our results obtained in
the two possible uniform jet scenarios, i.e. assuming a homogeneous density
profile (HM) or a wind density profile (WM) for the circumburst medium. Better
constraints on and are obtained with the
(tighter) -- correlation derived in the wind density
scenario. We explore the improvements to the constraints of the cosmological
parameters that could be reached with a large sample, 150 GRBs, in the
future. We study the possibility to calibrate the slope of these correlations.
Our optimization analysis suggests that GRBs with redshift
can be used to calibrate the -- with
a precision better than 1%. The same precision is expected for the same number
of bursts with . This result suggests that we do not
necessarily need a large sample of low z GRBs for calibrating the slope of
these correlations.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to A&
Gamma Ray Bursts: new rulers to measure the Universe
The best measure of the Universe should be done using a standard "ruler" at
any redshift. Type Ia Supernovae (SN Ia) probe the universe up to z1.5,
while the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) primary anisotropies concern
basically 1000. Apparently, Gamma--Ray Bursts (GRBs) are all but
standard candles. However, their emission is collimated and the
collimation--corrected energy correlates tightly with the frequency at which
most of the radiation of the prompt is emitted, as found by Ghirlanda et al.
(2004). Through this correlation we can infer the burst energy accurately
enough to probe the intermediate redshift () Universe. Using the best
known 15 GRBs we find very encouraging results that emphasize the cosmological
GRB role. A combined fit with SN Ia yields and
. Assuming in addition a flat Universe, the
parameters are constrained to be and
. GRBs accomplish the role of "missing link"
between SN Ia and CMB primary anisotropies. They can provide a new insight on
the cosmic effects of dark energy, complementary to the one supplied by CMB
secondary anisotropies through the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect. The
unexpected Standard Candle cosmological role of GRBs motivates the most
optimistic hopes for what can be obtained when the GRB-dedicated satellite,
Swift, will be launched.Comment: 11 pages, 4 color figures, ApJ Letters (vol. 613) in pres
Gamma Ray Bursts as cosmological tools
The use of Gamma Ray Bursts as ``standard candles'' has been made possible by
the recent discovery of a very tight correlation between their rest frame
intrinsic properties. This correlation relates the GRB prompt emission peak
spectral energy E_peak to the energy E_gamma corrected for the collimation
angle theta_jet of these sources. The possibility to use GRBs to constrain the
cosmological parameters and to study the nature of Dark Energy are very
promising.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of the workshop 'Astrophysical
sources of high energy particles and radiation', Torun - Poland 20-24 June
2005, Ed. T. Bulik, B. Rudak, G. Madejsk
The updated E_peak - E_gamma correlation in GRBs
The recently discovered correlation between the rest frame GRB peak spectral
energy and the collimation corrected energy in long
GRBs is potentially very important, yet awaits confirmation from an independent
sample. It may help to shed light on the radiation mechanism of the prompt GRB
phase and on the way -- and in which form -- the energy is released from the
central engine. We here present some additional evidence for the correlation
(two new bursts) and re-derive the best-fit parameters. The tightness of the
correlation is confirmed (sigma=0.1 dex). We show that this correlation allows
us, for the first time, to use GRBs as cosmological probes to constrain the
expansion history of the universe.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Il Nuovo Cimento (4th Workshop
Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era, Rome, 18-22 October 2004). Additional
material at http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/~ghirla/deep/blink.ht
The peak luminosity - peak energy correlation in GRBs
We derive the peak luminosity - peak energy (L_iso - E_peak) correlation
using 22 long Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) with firm redshift measurements. We find
that its slope is similar to the correlation between the time integrated
isotropic emitted energy E_iso and E_peak (Amati et al. 2002). For the 15 GRBs
in our sample with estimated jet opening angle we compute the collimation
corrected peak luminosity L_gamma, and find that it correlates with E_peak.
This has, however, a scatter larger than the correlation between E_peak and
E_gamma (the time integrated emitted energy, corrected for collimation;
Ghirlanda et al. 2004), which we ascribe to the fact that the opening angle is
estimated through the global energetics. We have then selected a large sample
of 442 GRBs with pseudo--redshifts, derived through the lag-luminosity
relation, to test the existence of the L_iso-E_peak correlation. With this
sample we also explore the possibility of a correlation between time resolved
quantities, namely L_iso,p and the peak energy at the peak of emission
E_peak,p.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables - MNRAS Letters submitte
Black-body components in Gamma-Ray Bursts spectra?
We study 7 Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), detected both by the BATSE instrument,
on-board the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and by the Wide Field Camera (WFC),
on-board BeppoSAX. These bursts have measured spectroscopic redshifts and are a
sizeable fraction of the bursts defining the correlation between the peak
energy E_peak (i.e. the peak of the vFv spectrum) and the total prompt
isotropic energy E_iso (the so called "Amati" relation). Recent theoretical
interpretations of this correlation assume that black-body emission dominates
the time resolved spectra of GRBs, even if, in the time integrated spectrum,
its presence may be hidden by the change of its temperature and by the dilution
of a possible non-thermal power law component. We perform a time resolved
spectral analysis, and show that the sum of a power-law and a black-body gives
acceptable fits to the time dependent spectra within the BATSE energy range,
but overpredicts the flux in the WFC X-ray range. Moreover, a fit with a cutoff
power-law plus a black-body is consistent with the WFC data, but the black-body
component contributes a negligible fraction of the total flux. On the contrary,
we find that fitting the spectra with a Band model or a simple cutoff power-law
model yields an X-ray flux and spectral slope which well matches the WFC
spectra.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Time-resolved spectral correlations of long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
For a sample of long GRBs with known redshift, we study the distribution of
the evolutionary tracks on the rest-frame luminosity-peak energy Liso-Ep'
diagram. We are interested in exploring the extension of the `Yonetoku'
correlation to any phase of the prompt light curve, and in verifying how the
high-signal prompt duration time, Tf, in the rest frame correlates with the
residuals of such correlation (Firmani et al. 2006). For our purpose, we
analyse separately two samples of time-resolved spectra corresponding to 32
GRBs with peak fluxes >1.8 phot cm^-2 s^-1 from the Swift-BAT detector, and 7
bright GRBs from the CGRO-BATSE detector previously processed by Kaneko et al.
(2006). After constructing the Liso-Ep' diagram, we discuss the relevance of
selection effects, finding that they could affect significantly the
correlation. However, we find that these effects are much less significant in
the Liso x Tf-Ep' diagram, where the intrinsic scatter reduces significantly.
We apply further corrections for reducing the intrinsic scatter even more. For
the sub-samples of GRBs (7 from Swift and 5 from CGRO) with measured jet break
time, we analyse the effects of correcting Liso by jet collimation. We find
that (i) the scatter around the correlation is reduced, and (ii) this scatter
is dominated by the internal scatter of the individual evolutionary tracks.
These results suggest that the time, integrated `Amati' and `Ghirlanda'
correlations are consequences of the time resolved features, not of selection
effects, and therefore call for a physical origin. We finally remark the
relevance of looking inside the nature of the evolutionary tracks.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. Submitted to MNRAS (Sept 8th), after
referee comment
- …