No Arabic abstract
The origin of the X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts has regularly been debated. We fit both the fireball-shock and millisecond-magnetar models of gamma-ray bursts to the X-ray data of GRB 130603B and 140903A. We use Bayesian model selection to answer the question of which model best explains the data. This is dependent on the maximum allowed non-rotating neutron star mass $M_{textrm{TOV}}$, which depends solely on the unknown nuclear equation of state. We show that the data for GRB140903A favours the millisecond-magnetar model for all possible equations of state, while the data for GRB130603B favours the millisecond-magnetar model if $M_{textrm{TOV}} gtrsim 2.3 M_{odot}$. If $M_{textrm{TOV}} lesssim 2.3 M_{odot}$, the data for GRB130603B supports the fireball-shock model. We discuss implications of this result in regards to the nuclear equation of state and the prospect of gravitational-wave emission from newly-born millisecond magnetars.
We report the discovery of a transient and fading hard X-ray emission in the BATSE lightcurves of a sample of short gamma-ray bursts. We have summed each of the four channel BATSE light curves of 76 short bursts to uncover the average overall temporal and spectral evolution of a possible transient signal following the prompt flux. We found an excess emission peaking ~30 s after the prompt one, detectable for ~100 s. The soft power-law spectrum and the time-evolution of this transient signal suggest that it is produced by the deceleration of a relativistic expanding source, as predicted by the afterglow model.
I will review the constraints set by X-ray measurements of afterglows on several issues of GRB, with particular regard to the fireball model, the environment, the progenitor and dark GRB.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) display a bimodal duration distribution, with a separation between the short- and long-duration bursts at about 2 sec. The progenitors of long GRBs have been identified as massive stars based on their association with Type Ic core-collapse supernovae, their exclusive location in star-forming galaxies, and their strong correlation with bright ultraviolet regions within their host galaxies. Short GRBs have long been suspected on theoretical grounds to arise from compact object binary mergers (NS-NS or NS-BH). The discovery of short GRB afterglows in 2005, provided the first insight into their energy scale and environments, established a cosmological origin, a mix of host galaxy types, and an absence of associated supernovae. In this review I summarize nearly a decade of short GRB afterglow and host galaxy observations, and use this information to shed light on the nature and properties of their progenitors, the energy scale and collimation of the relativistic outflow, and the properties of the circumburst environments. The preponderance of the evidence points to compact object binary progenitors, although some open questions remain. Based on this association, observations of short GRBs and their afterglows can shed light on the on- and off-axis electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources from the Advanced LIGO/Virgo experiments.
A binary neutron star (BNS) merger has been widely argued to be one of the progenitors of a short gamma-ray burst (SGRB). This central engine can be verified if its gravitational-wave (GW) event is detected simultaneously. Once confirmed, this kind of association will be a landmark in multi-messenger astronomy and will greatly enhance our understanding of the BNS merger processes. Due to the limited detection horizon of BNS mergers for the advanced LIGO/Virgo GW observatories, we are inclined to local SGRBs within few hundreds of mega-parsecs. Since normal SGRBs rarely fall into such a close range, to make it more observationally valuable, we have to focus on low-luminosity SGRBs which have a higher statistical occurrence rate and detection probability. However, there is a possibility that an observed low-luminosity SGRB is intrinsically powerful but we are off-axis and only observe its side emission. In this paper, we provide some theoretical predictions of both the off-axis afterglow emission from a nearby SGRB under the assumption of a structured jet and the macronova signal from the ejecta of this GW-detectable BNS merger. From the properties of the afterglow emission, we could distinguish an off-axis normal SGRB from an intrinsically low-energy quasi-isotropic class. Furthermore, with follow-up multi-wavelength observations, a few parameters for BNS mergers (e.g. the medium density and the ejecta mass and velocity) would be constrained.
We study the emission observed at energies greater than 100 MeV of 11 Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi/Large Area Telescope (LAT) until October 2009. The GeV emission has three main properties: (i) its duration is often longer than the duration of the softer emission detected by the Gamma Burst Monitor (GBM) onboard Fermi [this confirms earlier results from the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET)]; (ii) its spectrum is consistent with F(v) propto v^(-1) and does not show strong spectral evolution; (iii) for the brightest bursts, the flux detected by the LAT decays as a power law with a typical slope: t^(-1.5). We argue that the observed >0.1 GeV flux can be interpreted as afterglow emission shortly following the start of the prompt phase emission as seen at smaller frequencies. The decay slope is what expected if the fireball emission is produced in the radiative regime, i.e. all dissipated energy is radiated away. We also argue that the detectability in the GeV energy range depends on the bulk Lorentz factor Gamma of the bursts, being strongly favoured in the case of large Gamma. This implies that the fraction of bursts detected at high energies corresponds to the fraction of bursts having the largest Gamma. The radiative interpretation can help to explain why the observed X-ray and optical afterglow energetics are much smaller than the energetics emitted during the prompt phase, despite the fact that the collision with the external medium should be more efficient than internal shocks in producing the radiation we see.