An unexpectedly rapid decline in the X-ray afterglow emission of long gamma-ray bursts
Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0506355
From: Gianpiero Tagliaferri [view email]
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:08:38 GMT (351kb)
An unexpectedly rapid decline in the X-ray afterglow emission of long
gamma-ray bursts
Authors:
G. Tagliaferri,
M. Goad,
G. Chincarini,
A. Moretti,
S. Campana,
D.N. Burrows,
M. Perri,
S.D. Barthelmy,
N. Gehrels,
H. Krimm,
T. Sakamoto,
P. Kumar,
P.I. Meszaros,
S. Kobayashi,
B. Zhang,
L. Angelini,
P. Banat,
A.P. Beardmore,
M. Capalbi,
S. Covino,
G. Cusumano,
P. Giommi,
O. Godet,
J.E. Hill,
J.A. Kennea,
V. Mangano,
D.C. Morris,
J.A. Nousek,
P.T. O’Brien,
J.P. Osborne,
C. Pagani,
K.L. Page,
P. Romano,
L. Stella,
A. Wells
Comments: 10 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures. Note: This paper has been accepted for
publication in Nature, but is embargoed for discussion in the popular press
until formal publication in Nature
Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are commonly accepted to originate in the
explosion of particularly massive stars, which gives rise to a highly
relativistic jet. Internal inhomogeneities in the expanding flow give rise to
internal shock waves that are believed to produce the gamma-rays we see. As the
jet travels further outward into the surrounding circumstellar medium
`external’ shocks give rise to the afterglow emission seen in the X-ray,
optical and radio bands. Here we report on the early phases of the X-ray
emission of five GRBs. Their X-ray light curves are characterised by a rapid
fall-off for the first few hundred seconds, followed by a less rapid decline
lasting several hours. This steep decline, together with detailed spectral
properties of two particular bursts, shows that violent shock interactions take
place in the early jet outflows.
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