No Arabic abstract
Observationally, there are a small fraction GRBs prompt emission observed by Fermi/GBM that are composed of two pulses. Occasionally, the cosmological distance of GRB may be lensed when a high mass astrophysical object reside in path between GRB source and observer. In this paper, we are lucky to find out GRB 200716C with two-pulse emission which duration is a few seconds. We present a Bayesian analysis identifying gravitational lensing in both temporal and spectral properties, and calculate the time decay ($Delta tsim 1.92$ s) and magnification ($gammasim 1.5$) between those two pulses based on the temporal fits. One can roughly estimate the lens mass is about $2.38times 10^{5}~M_{odot}$ in the rest frame. If the first pulse of this GRB near triggered time is indeed gravitationally echoed by a second pulse, GRB 200716C may be a short GRB candidate with extended emission.
A tiny fraction of observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) may be lensed. The time delays induced by the gravitational lensing are milliseconds to seconds if the point lenses are intermediate-mass black holes. The prompt emission of the lensed GRBs, in principle, should have repeated pulses with identical light curves and spectra but different fluxes and slightly offset positions. In this work, we search for such candidates within the GRBs detected by Fermi/GBM, Swift/BAT, and HXMT/HE and report the identification of an attractive event GRB 200716C that consists of two pulses. Both the autocorrelation analysis and the Bayesian inference of the prompt emission light curve are in favor of the gravitational lensing scenario. Moreover, the spectral properties of the two pulses are rather similar and follow the so-called Amati relation of short GRBs rather than long duration bursts. The measured flux ratios between the two pulses are nearly constant in all channels, as expected from gravitational lensing. We therefore suggest that the long duration burst GRB 200716C was a short event being lensed. The redshifted mass of the lens was estimated to be $4.25^{+2.46}_{-1.36}$ $times$ $10^5$ $M_{odot}$ (90$%$ credibility). If correct, this could point towards the existence of an intermediate-mass black hole along the line of sight of GRB 200716C.
GRB 200219A is a short gamma-ray burst (GRB) with an extended emission (EE) lasting $sim 90$s. By analyzing data observed with the {em Swift}/BAT and {em Fermi}/GBM, we find that a cutoff power-law model can adequately fit the spectra of the initial short pulse with $rm E_{p}=1387^{+232}_{-134}$ keV. More interestingly, together with the EE component and early X-ray data, it exhibits plateau emission smoothly connected with a $sim t^{-1}$ segment and followed by an extremely steep decay. The short GRB composed of those three segments is unique in the {em Swift} era and is very difficult to explain with the standard internal/external shock model of a black hole central engine, but could be consistent with the prediction of a magnetar central engine from the merger of an NS binary. We suggest that the plateau emission followed by a $sim t^{-1}$ decay phase is powered by the spin-down of a millisecond magnetar, which loses its rotation energy via GW quadrupole radiation. Then, the abrupt drop decay is caused by the magnetar collapsing into a black hole before switching to EM-dominated emission. This is the first short GRB for which the X-ray emission has such an intriguing feature powered by a magnetar via GW-dominated radiation. If this is the case, one can estimate the physical parameters of a magnetar, the GW signal powered by a magnetar and the merger-nova emission are also discussed.
We review results from our monitoring observations of several lensed quasars performed in the optical, UV, and X-ray bands. Modeling of the multi-wavelength light curves provides constraints on the extent of the optical, UV, and X-ray emission regions. One of the important results of our analysis is that the optical sizes as inferred from the microlensing analysis are significantly larger than those predicted by the theoretical-thin-disk estimate. In a few cases we also constrain the slope of the size-wavelength relation. Our size constraints of the soft and hard X-ray emission regions of quasars indicate that in some objects of our sample the hard X-ray emission region is more compact than the soft and in others the soft emission region is smaller. This difference may be the result of the relative strengths of the disk-reflected (harder and extended) versus corona-direct (softer and compact) components in the quasars of our sample. Finally, we present the analysis of several strong microlensing events where we detect an evolution of the relativistic Fe line profile as the magnification caustic traverses the accretion disk. These caustic crossings are used to provide constraints on the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) radius and the accretion disk inclination angle of the black hole in quasar RX J1131-1231.
Recently, the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration (LVC) concluded that there is no evidence for lensed gravitational waves (GW) in the first half of the O3 run, claiming We find the observation of lensed events to be unlikely, with the fractional rate at $mu>2$ being $3.3times 10^{-4}$. While we agree that the chance of an individual GW event being lensed at $mu>2$ is smaller than $10^{-3}$, the number of observed events depends on the product of this small probability times the rate of mergers at high redshift. Observational constraints from the stochastic GW background indicate that the rate of conventional mass BBH mergers (8 < M (M$_{odot}$) < 15) in the redshift range 1<z< 2 could be as high as O($10^7$) events per year, more than sufficient to compensate for the intrinsically low probability of lensing. To reach the LVC trigger threshold these events require high magnification, but would still produce up to 10 to 30 LVC observable events per year. Thus, all the LVC observed ordinary stellar mass BBH mergers from this epoch must be strongly lensed. By adopting low-rates at high redshift, LVC assumes that lensed events can not be taking place, thus incorrectly assigning them a closer distance and higher masses by a factor of a few (typically 2 to 5). The LVC adopted priors on time delay are in tension with the distribution of observed time delays in lensed quasars. Pairs of events like GW190421-GW190910 and GW190424-GW190910, which are directly assigned a probability of zero by LVC, should be instead considered as prime candidates to be strongly lensed GW pairs, since their separation in time is consistent with observations of time delays in lensed quasars. Correcting for the LVC wrong Bayesian priors, maximum merger rate of conventional mass BBH in 1<z<2, and gravitational lensing time-delay model, reverses the LVC conclusions and supports the strong gravitational lensing hypothesis.
The early optical emission of gamma-ray bursts gives an opportunity to understand the central engine and first stages of these events. About 30% of GRBs present flares whose origin is still a subject of discussion. We present optical photometry of GRB 180620A with the COATLI telescope and RATIR instrument. COATLI started to observe from the end of prompt emission at $T+39.3$~s and RATIR from $T+121.4$~s. We supplement the optical data with the X-ray light curve from emph{Swift}/XRT. %The optical and X-ray light curves show very unusual behavior with features clearly beyond the standard fireball model. We observe an optical flare from $T+110$ to $T+550$~s, with a temporal index decay $alpha_mathrm{O,decay}=1.32pm 0.01$, and a $Delta t/t=1.63$, which we interpret as the signature of a reverse shock component. After the initial normal decay the light curves show a long plateau from $T+500$ to $T+7800$~s both in X-rays and the optical before decaying again after an achromatic jet break at $T+7800$~s. Fluctuations are seen during the plateau phase in the optical. Adding to the complexity of GRB afterglows, the plateau phase (typically associated with the coasting phase of the jet) is seen in this object after the ``normal decay phase (emitted during the deceleration phase of the jet) and the jet break phase occurs directly after the plateau. We suggest that this sequence of events can be explained by a rapid deceleration of the jet with $t_dlesssim 40$ s due to the high density of the environment ($approx 100$ cm$^{-3}$) followed by reactivation of the central engine which causes the flare and powers the plateau phase.