Galaxies (Jan 2017)

Exploring the Behaviour of Long Gamma-Ray Bursts with Intrinsic Afterglow Correlations: log L200s−α>200s

  • Samantha R. Oates,
  • Judith L. Racusin,
  • Massimilliano De Pasquale,
  • Daniel Kocevski,
  • Mathew J. Page,
  • Alberto J. Castro-Tirado,
  • Javier Gorosabel,
  • Philip J. Smith,
  • Alice A. Breeveld,
  • Paul M. Kuin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/galaxies5010004
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1
p. 4

Abstract

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In these proceedings, we summarise the exploration so far of the relationship between the afterglow luminosity (measured at rest frame 200s; log L 200 s ) and average afterglow decay rate (measured from rest frame 200s onwards, α > 200 s ) of long duration Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs), first reported in the optical/UV light curves of GRB afterglows. We show that this correlation is also present in the X-ray afterglows of GRBs as observed by Swift-XRT. We explore how the parameters of the correlation observed in both the X-ray and optical/UV light curves relate to each other and the prompt emission phase and whether these correlations are consistent with predictions of the standard afterglow model. We find that the observed correlations are consistent with a common underlying physical mechanism producing GRBs and their afterglows regardless of the detailed temporal behaviour. However, a basic afterglow model has difficulty explaining all the observed correlations. This leads us to briefly discuss alternative more complex models.

Keywords