Can the jet steepen the light curves of GRB afterglow?

Beaming of relativistic ejecta in GRBs has been postulated by many authors in order to reduce the total GRB energy, thus it is very important to look for the observational evidence of beaming. Rhoads (1999) has pointed out that the dynamics of the blast wave, which is formed when the beamed ejecta sweeping the external medium, will be significantly modified by the sideways expansion due to the increased swept up matter. He claimed that shortly after the bulk Lorentz factor ($\Gamma$) of the blast wave drops below the inverse of the initial opening angle ($\theta_{0}$) of the beamed ejecta, there will be a sharp break in the afterglow light curves. However, some other authors have performed numerical calculations and shown that the break of the light curve is weaker and much smoother than the one analytically predicted. In this paper we reanalyse the dynamical evolution of the jet blast wave, calculate the jet emission analytically, we find that the sharp break predicted by Rhoads will actually not exist, and for most cases the afterglow light curve will almost not be affected by sideways expansion unless the beaming angle is extremely small. We demonstrate that only when $\theta_{0}<0.1$, the afterglow light curves may be steepened by sideways expansion, and in fact there cannot be two breaks as claimed before. We have also constructed a simple numerical code to verify our conclusion.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJ, added numerical calculation

Diverse Temporal Properties of GRB Afterglow

The detection of delayed X-ray, optical and radio emission, "afterglow", associated with $\gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs) is consistent with fireball models, where the emission are produced by relativistic expanding blast wave, driven by expanding fireball at cosmogical distances. The emission mechanisms of GRB afterglow have been discussed by many authors and synchrotron radiation is believed to be the main mechanism. The observations show that the optical light curves of two observed gamma-ray bursts, GRB970228 and GRB GRB970508, can be described by a simple power law, which seems to support the synchrotron radiation explanation. However, here we shall show that under some circumstances, the inverse Compton scattering (ICS) may play an important role in emission spectrum and this may influence the temporal properties of GRB afterglow. We expect that the light curves of GRB afterglow may consist of multi-components, which depends on the fireball parameters.Comment: Latex, no figures, minor correctio

Gamma-ray bursts: postburst evolution of fireballs

The postburst evolution of fireballs that produce $\gamma$-ray bursts is studied, assuming the expansion of fireballs to be adiabatic and relativistic. Numerical results as well as an approximate analytic solution for the evolution are presented. Due to adoption of a new relation among $t$, $R$ and $\gamma$ (see the text), our results differ markedly from the previous studies. Synchrotron radiation from the shocked interstellar medium is attentively calculated, using a convenient set of equations. The observed X-ray flux of GRB afterglows can be reproduced easily. Although the optical afterglows seem much more complicated, our results can still present a rather satisfactory approach to observations. It is also found that the expansion will no longer be highly relativistic about 4 days after the main GRB. We thus suggest that the marginally relativistic phase of the expansion should be investigated so as to check the afterglows observed a week or more later.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, MNRAS in pres

Is GRO J1744-28 a Strange Star?

The unusal hard x-ray burster GRO J1744-28 recently discovered by the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory (GRO) can be modeled as a strange star with a dipolar magnetic field $\le 10^{11}$Gauss. When the accreted mass of the star exceeds some critical mass, its crust may break, resulting in conversion of the accreted matter into strange matter and release of energy. Subsequently, a fireball may form and expand relativistically outward. The expanding fireball may interact with the surrounding interstellar medium, causing its kinetic energy to be radiated in shock waves, producing a burst of x-ray radiation. The burst energy, duration, interval and spectrum derived from such a model are consistent with the observations of GRO J1744-28.Comment: Latex, has been published in SCIENCE, Vol. 280, 40

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Implementation of a Quantum Clock Synchronization Algorithm

The quantum clock synchronization algorithm proposed by I. L. Chuang (Phys. Rev. Lett, 85, 2006(2000)) has been implemented in a three qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum system. The effective-pure state is prepared by the spatial averaging approach. The time difference between two separated clocks can be determined by reading out directly through the NMR spectra.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure