1,588 research outputs found
Constraints on Association of Single-pulse Gamma-ray Bursts and Supernovae
We explore the hypothesis, similar to one recently suggested by Bloom and
colleagues, that some nearby supernovae are associated with smooth,
single-pulse gamma-ray bursts, possibly having no emission above ~ 300 keV. We
examine BATSE bursts with durations longer than 2 s, fitting those which can be
visually characterized as single-pulse events with a lognormal pulse model. The
fraction of events that can be reliably ascertained to be temporally and
spectrally similar to the exemplar, GRB 980425 - possibly associated with SN
1998bw - is 4/1573 or 0.25%. This fraction could be as high as 8/1573 (0.5%) if
the dimmest bursts are included. Approximately 2% of bursts are morphologically
similar to GRB 980425 but have emission above ~ 300 keV. A search of supernova
catalogs containing 630 detections during BATSE's lifetime reveals only one
burst (GRB 980425) within a 3-month time window and within the total 3-sigma
BATSE error radius that could be associated with a type Ib/c supernova. There
is no tendency for any subset of single-pulse GRBs to fall near the
Supergalactic Plane, whereas SNe of type Ib/c do show this tendency. Economy of
hypotheses leads us to conclude that nearby supernovae generally are not
related to smooth, single-pulse gamma-ray bursts.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure
Fireballs Loading and the Blast Wave Model of Gamma Ray Bursts
A simple function for the spectral power
is proposed to model, with 9 parameters, the spectral and temporal evolution of
the observed nonthermal synchrotron power flux from GRBs in the blast wave
model. Here mc is the observed dimensionless photon
energy and is the observing time. Assumptions and an issue of lack of
self-consistency are spelled out. The spectra are found to be most sensitive to
the baryon loading, expressed in terms of the initial bulk Lorentz factor
, and an equipartition term which is assumed to be constant in
time and independent of . Expressions are given for the peak spectral
power at the photon energy of the spectral power peak. A general rule is that the total
fireball particle kinetic energy , where is the deceleration time scale and is the maximum measured bolometric
power output in radiation, during which it is carried primarily by photons with
energy .Comment: 26 pages, including 4 figures, uses epsf.sty, rotate.sty; submitted
to ApJ; revised version with extended introduction, redrawn figures, and
correction
Delayed soft X-ray emission lines in the afterglow of GRB 030227
Strong, delayed X-ray line emission is detected in the afterglow of GRB
030227, appearing near the end of the XMM-Newton observation, nearly twenty
hours after the burst. The observed flux in the lines, not simply the
equivalent width, sharply increases from an undetectable level (<1.7e-14
erg/cm^2/s, 3 sigma) to 4.1e-14 erg/cm^2/s in the final 9.7 ks. The line
emission alone has nearly twice as many detected photons as any previous
detection of X-ray lines. The lines correspond well to hydrogen and/or
helium-like emission from Mg, Si, S, Ar and Ca at a redshift z=1.39. There is
no evidence for Fe, Co or Ni--the ultimate iron abundance must be less than a
tenth that of the lighter metals. If the supernova and GRB events are nearly
simultaneous there must be continuing, sporadic power output after the GRB of a
luminosity >~5e46 erg/s, exceeding all but the most powerful quasars.Comment: Submitted to ApJL. 14 pages, 3 figures with AASLaTe
On Spectral and Temporal Variability in Blazars and Gamma Ray Bursts
A simple model for variability in relativistic plasma outflows is studied, in
which nonthermal electrons are continuously and uniformly injected in the
comoving frame over a time interval dt. The evolution of the electron
distribution is assumed to be dominated by synchrotron losses, and the energy-
and time-dependence of the synchrotron and synchrotron self-Compton (SSC)
fluxes are calculated for a power-law electron injection function with index s
= 2. The mean time of a flare or pulse measured at photon energy E with respect
to the onset of the injection event varies as E^{-1/2} and E^{-1/4} for
synchrotron and SSC processes, respectively, until the time approaches the
limiting intrinsic mean time (1+z)dt/(2 D), where z is the redshift and D is
the Doppler factor. This dependence is in accord with recent analyses of blazar
and GRB emissions, and suggests a method to discriminate between external
Compton and SSC models of high-energy gamma radiation from blazars and GRBs.
The qualititative behavior of the X-ray spectral index/flux relation observed
from BL Lac objects can be explained with this model. This demonstrates that
synchrotron losses are primarily responsible for the X-ray variability behavior
and strengthens a new test for beaming from correlated hard X-ray/TeV
observations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical
Journal Letters; uses aaspp4.sty, epsf.st
The Energy Dependence of Neutron Star Surface Modes and X-ray Burst Oscillations
We calculate the photon energy dependence of the pulsed amplitude of neutron
star (NS) surface modes. Simple approximations demonstrate that it depends most
strongly on the bursting NS surface temperature. This result compares well with
full integrations that include Doppler shifts from rotation and general
relativistic corrections to photon propagation. We show that the energy
dependence of type I X-ray burst oscillations agrees with that of a surface
mode, lending further support to the hypothesis that they originate from
surface waves. The energy dependence of the pulsed emission is rather
insensitive to the NS inclination, mass and radius, or type of mode, thus
hindering constraints on these parameters. We also show that, for this
energy-amplitude relation, the majority of the signal (relative to the noise)
comes in the 2-25 keV band, so that the current burst oscillation searches with
the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer are close to optimal. The critical test of the
mode hypothesis for X-ray burst oscillations would be a measurement of the
energy dependence of burst oscillations from an accreting millisecond pulsar.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, 6 pages, 5
figures (revised version: no changes to text, just edited author list
BATSE Observations of Gamma-Ray Burst Tails
I discuss in this paper the phenomenon of post-burst emission in BATSE
gamma-ray bursts at energies traditionally associated with prompt emission. By
summing the background-subtracted signals from hundreds of bursts, I find that
tails out to hundreds of seconds after the trigger may be a common feature of
long events (duration greater than 2s), and perhaps of the shorter bursts at a
lower and shorter-lived level. The tail component appears independent of both
the duration (within the long GRB sample) and brightness of the prompt burst
emission, and may be softer. Some individual bursts have visible tails at
gamma-ray energies and the spectrum in at least a few cases is different from
that of the prompt emission.Comment: 33 Pages from LaTex including 7 figures, with aastex. To appear in
Astrophysical Journa
Numerically Modeling the First Peak of the Type IIb SN 2016gkg
Many Type IIb supernovae (SNe) show a prominent additional early peak in
their light curves, which is generally thought to be due to the shock cooling
of extended hydrogen-rich material surrounding the helium core of the exploding
star. The recent SN 2016gkg was a nearby Type IIb SN discovered shortly after
explosion, which makes it an excellent candidate for studying this first peak.
We numerically explode a large grid of extended envelope models and compare
these to SN 2016gkg to investigate what constraints can be derived from its
light curve. This includes exploring density profiles for both a convective
envelope and an optically thick steady-state wind, the latter of which has not
typically been considered for Type IIb SNe models. We find that roughly
of extended material with a radius of
reproduces the photometric light curve data,
consistent with pre-explosion imaging. These values are independent of the
assumed density profile of this material, although a convective profile
provides a somewhat better fit. We infer from our modeling that the explosion
must have occurred within of the first observed data
point, demonstrating that this event was caught very close to the moment of
explosion. Nevertheless, our best-fitting one-dimensional models overpredict
the earliest velocity measurements, which suggests that the hydrogen-rich
material is not distributed in a spherically symmetric manner. We compare this
to the asymmetries seen in the SN IIb remnant Cas A, and we discuss the
implications of this for Type IIb SN progenitors and explosion models.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, updated version accepted for publication in The
Astrophysical Journa
GRB990510: on the possibility of a beamed X-ray afterglow
We discuss the prompt emission of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 990510 and its
subsequent X-ray afterglow from 8.0 to 44.3 hrs after the prompt emission,
using observations with the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and Narrow Field
Instruments on BeppoSAX. In the 40-700 keV band, GRB990510 had a fluence of
\~1.9x10^{-5}erg cm^{-2}, whereas it reached a peak flux of ~2.4x10^{-6}erg
cm^{-2} s^{-1}. The X-ray afterglow decay light curve can be satisfactorily
described by a single power law with index of -1.42+/-0.07. Both the X-ray and
optical behaviour of the afterglow can be explained by gamma-ray burst debris
expanding as a jet; we find that the cooling frequency is (fixed) between the
optical and X-ray wavelength bands.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Prompt and delayed emission properties of Gamma-Ray Bursts observed with BeppoSAX
We investigated the spectral evolution in the 2--700 keV energy band of
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) detected by the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GRBM) and
localized with the Wide Field Cameras (WFCs) aboard the BeppoSAX satellite
before May 1998. Most of them have been followed-up with the Narrow Field
Instruments aboard the same satellite. In the light of these results we discuss
open issues on the GRB phenomenon. We find that the optically thin synchrotron
shock model (SSM) provides an acceptable representation of most of the
time-resolved GRB spectra extending down to 2 keV, except in the initial phases
of several bursts and during the whole duration of the quite strong GRB970111,
where a low-energy photon depletion with respect to the thin SSM spectrum is
observed. We find that the X-ray afterglow starts at about 50% of the GRB
duration, and that its fluence, as computed from the WFC light curve, is
consistent with the decay law found from the afterglow NFI observations. We
also investigate the hydrodynamical evolution of the GRB in our sample and
their associated afterglow, when it was detected. We find that the photon index
of the latest spectrum of the GRB prompt emission is correlated with the index
of the afterglow fading law, when available, as expected on the basis of an
external shock of a relativistic fireball.Comment: 35 pages, 1 LaTeX file, 20 postscript figures, 1 postscript table,
accepted for pubblication in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series.
Corrected error bars in Fig.2/GRB980425/panel B and GRB980425 fluence in Tab.
Relationship between the gamma-ray burst pulse width and energy due to the Doppler effect of fireballs
We study in details how the pulse width of gamma-ray bursts is related with
energy under the assumption that the sources concerned are in the stage of
fireballs. Due to the Doppler effect of fireballs, there exists a power law
relationship between the two quantities within a limited range of frequency.
The power law range and the power law index depend strongly on the observed
peak energy as well as the rest frame radiation form, and the upper and
lower limits of the power law range can be determined by . It is found
that, within the same power law range, the ratio of the of the rising
portion to that of the decaying phase of the pulses is also related with energy
in the form of power laws. A platform-power-law-platform feature could be
observed in the two relationships. In the case of an obvious softening of the
rest frame spectrum, the two power law relationships also exist, but the
feature would evolve to a peaked one. Predictions on the relationships in the
energy range covering both the BATSE and Swift bands for a typical hard burst
and a typical soft one are made. A sample of FRED (fast rise and exponential
decay) pulse bursts shows that 27 out of the 28 sources belong to either the
platform-power-law-platform feature class or the peaked feature group,
suggesting that the effect concerned is indeed important for most of the
sources of the sample. Among these bursts, many might undergo an obvious
softening evolution of the rest frame spectrum.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
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