No Arabic abstract
We have collected and analyzed data taken in different spectral bands (from X-ray to optical and infrared) of the field of GRB031220 and we present results of such multiband observations. Comparison between images taken at different epochs in the same filters did not reveal any strong variable source in the field of this burst. X-ray analysis shows that only two of the seven Chandra sources have a significant flux decrease and seem to be the most likely afterglow candidates. Both sources do not show the typical values of the R-K colour but they appear to be redder. However, only one source has an X-ray decay index (1.3 +/- 0.1) that is typical for observed afterglows. We assume that this source is the best afterglow candidate and we estimate a redshift of 1.90 +/- 0.30. Photometric analysis and redshift estimation for this object suggest that this GRB can be classified as a Dark Burst and that the obscuration is the result of dust extinction in the circum burst medium or inside the host galaxy.
The long and relatively faint gamma-ray burst GRB 060605 detected by emph{Swift}/BAT lasted about 20 sec. Its afterglow could be observed with emph{Swift}/XRT for nearly 1 day, while emph{Swift}/UVOT could detect the afterglow during the first 6 hours after the event. Here, we report on integral field spectroscopy of its afterglow performed with PMAS/PPak mounted at the Calar Alto 3.5 m telescope. In addition, we report on a detailed analysis of XRT and UVOT data and on the results of deep late-time VLT observations that reveal the GRB host galaxy. We find that the burst occurred at a redshift of $z$=3.773, possibly associated with a faint, $R_C=26.4 pm 0.3$ host. Based on the optical and X-ray data, we deduce information on the SED of the afterglow, the position of the cooling frequency in the SED, the nature of the circumburst environment, its collimation factor, and its energetics. We find that the GRB fireball was expanding into a constant-density medium and that the explosion was collimated with a narrow half-opening angle of about 2.4 degrees. The initial Lorentz factor of the fireball was about 250; however, its beaming-corrected energy release in the gamma-ray band was comparably low. The optical, X-ray afterglow, on the other hand, was rather luminous. Finally, we find that the data are consistent within the error bars with an achromatic evolution of the afterglow during the suspected jet break time at about 0.27 days after the burst.
We identify the fading X-ray afterglow of GRB 001025A from XMM-Newton observations obtained 1.9-2.3 days, 2 years, and 2.5 years after the burst. The non-detection of an optical counterpart to an upper limit of R=25.5, 1.20 days after the burst, makes GRB 001025A a ``dark burst. Based on the X-ray afterglow spectral properties of GRB 001025A, we argue that some bursts appear optically dark because their afterglow is faint and their cooling frequency is close to the X-ray band. This interpretation is applicable to several of the few other dark bursts where the X-ray spectral index has been measured. The X-ray afterglow flux of GRB 001025A is an order of magnitude lower than for typical long-duration gamma-ray bursts. The spectrum of the X-ray afterglow can be fitted with an absorbed synchrotron emission model, an absorbed thermal plasma model, or a combination thereof. For the latter, an extrapolation to optical wavelengths can be reconciled with the R-band upper limit on the afterglow, without invoking any optical circumburst absorption, provided the cooling frequency is close to the X-ray band. Alternatively, if the X-ray afterglow is due to synchrotron emission only, seven magnitudes of extinction in the observed R-band is required to meet the R-band upper limit, making GRB 001025A much more obscured than bursts with detected optical afterglows. Based on the column density of X-ray absorbing circumburst matter, an SMC gas-to-dust ratio is insufficient to produce this amount of extinction. The X-ray tail of the prompt emission enters a steep temporal decay excluding that the tail of the prompt emission is the onset of the afterglow (abridged).
Very-high-energy (VHE; $geq 10$ GeV) photons are expected from the nearest and brightest Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). VHE photons, at energies higher than 300 GeV, were recently reported by the MAGIC collaboration for this burst. Immediately, GRB 190114C was followed up by a massive observational campaign covering a large fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this paper, we obtain the LAT light curve of GRB 190114C and show that it exhibits similar features to other bright LAT-detected bursts; the first high-energy photon ($geq$ 100 MeV) is delayed with the onset of the prompt phase and the flux light curve exhibits a long-lived emission (lasting much longer than the prompt phase) and a short-lasting bright peak (located at the beginning of long-lived emission). Analyzing the multi-wavelength observations, we show that the short-lasting LAT and GBM bright peaks are consistent with the synchrotron self-Compton reverse-shock model and the long-lived observations with the standard synchrotron forward-shock model that evolves from a stratified stellar-wind like medium to a uniform ISM-like medium. Given the best-fit values, a bright optical flash produced by synchrotron reverse-shock emission is expected. From our analysis we infer that the high-energy photons are produced in the deceleration phase of the outflow and some additional processes to synchrotron in the forward shocks should be considered to properly describe the LAT photons with energies beyond the synchrotron limit. Moreover, we claim that an outflow endowed with magnetic fields could describe the polarization and properties exhibited in the light curve of GRB 190114C.
We investigate the afterglow of GRB 140713A, a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that was detected and relatively well-sampled at X-ray and radio wavelengths, but was not present at optical and near-infrared wavelengths, despite searches to deep limits. We present the emission spectrum of the likely host galaxy at $z = 0.935$ ruling out a high-redshift explanation for the absence of the optical flux detection. Modelling the GRB multi-wavelength afterglow using the radiative transfer hydrodynamics code BOXFIT provides constraints on physical parameters of the GRB jet and its environment, for instance a relatively wide jet opening angle and an electron energy distribution slope $p$ below 2. Most importantly, the model predicts an optical flux about two orders of magnitude above the observed limits. We calculated that the required host extinction to explain the observed limits in the $r$, $i$ and $z$ bands was $A^{rm host}_{V} > 3.2$ mag, equivalent to $E(B-V)^{rm host} > 1.0$ mag. From the X-ray absorption we derive that the GRB host extinction is $A^{rm host}_{rm V} = 11.6^{+7.5}_{-5.3}$ mag, equivalent to $E(B-V)^{rm host} = 3.7^{+2.4}_{-1.7}$ mag, which is consistent with the extinction required from our BOXFIT derived fluxes. We conclude that the origin of the optical darkness is a high level of extinction in the line of sight to the GRB, most likely within the GRB host galaxy.
Gamma-ray bursts - the most luminous explosions in the Universe - are produced as a result of cataclysmic events such as the collapse of a massive star or the merger of two neutron stars. We monitored the position of the close-by (about 370 Megaparsecs) gamma-ray burst GRB~190829A, which originated from a massive star collapse, through very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations with the European VLBI Network and the Very Long Baseline Array, involving a total of 30 telescopes across four continents. We carried out a total of 9 observations between 9 and 117 days after the gamma-ray burst at 5 and 15 GHz, reaching an overall excellent resolution. From a state-of-the art analysis of these data, we obtained valuable information on the source size and expansion rate. The measurements are in remarkable agreement with the size evolution entailed by a detailed modelling of the multi-wavelength light curves with a forward plus reverse shock model, which agrees with the observations across almost 18 orders of magnitude in frequency (including the High Energy Stereoscopic System data at teraelectronvolt photon energies) and more than 4 orders of magnitude in time. Thanks to the multi-wavelength, high-cadence coverage of the afterglow, inherent degeneracies in the afterglow model are broken to a large extent, allowing us to capture some unique physical insights: we find a low prompt emission efficiency $lesssim 10^{-3}$; we constrain the fraction of electrons that are accelerated to relativistic speeds in the forward shock downstream to be $chi_e<13%$ at the 90% confidence level; we find that the magnetic field energy density in the reverse shock downstream must decay rapidly after the shock crossing.