Publications (3)10.92 Total impact
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Article: Swift Observations of GRB 050603: An Afterglow with a Steep Late-Time Decay Slope
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ABSTRACT: We report the results of Swift observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 050603. With a V magnitude V = 18.2 about 10 hr after the burst, the optical afterglow was the brightest thus far detected by Swift and one of the brightest optical afterglows ever seen. The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) light curves show three fast-rise exponential-decay spikes with T90 = 12 s and a fluence of 7.6 × 10-6 ergs cm-2 in the 15-150 keV band. With Eγ,iso = 1.26 × 1054 ergs, it was also one of the most energetic bursts of all times. The Swift spacecraft began observation of the afterglow with the narrow-field instruments about 10 hr after the detection of the burst. The burst was bright enough to be detected by the Swift UV/Optical telescope (UVOT) for almost 3 days and by the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) for a week after the burst. The X-ray light curve shows a rapidly fading afterglow with a decay index α = 1.76. The X-ray energy spectral index was βX = 0.71 ± 0.10 with the column density in agreement with the Galactic value. The spectral analysis does not show an obvious change in the X-ray spectral slope over time. The optical UVOT light curve decays with a slope of α = 1.8 ± 0.2. The steepness and the similarity of the optical and X-ray decay rates suggest that the afterglow was observed after the jet break. We estimate a jet opening angle of about 1°-2°.The Astrophysical Journal 12/2008; 645(1):464. · 6.02 Impact Factor -
Article: GRB 060607A: a gamma‐ray burst with bright asynchronous early X‐ray and optical emissions
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ABSTRACT: The early optical emission of the moderately high redshift (2 = 3.08) GRB 060607A shows a remarkable broad and strong peak with a rapid rise and a relatively slow power-law decay. It is not coincident with the strong early-time flares seen in the X-ray and gamma-ray energy bands. There is weak evidence for variability superposed on this dominant component in several optical bands that can be related to flares in high-energy bands. While for a small number of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), well-sampled optical flares have been observed simultaneously with X-ray and gamma-ray pulses, GRB 060607A is one of the few cases where the early optical emission shows no significant evidence for correlation with the prompt emission. In this work we first report in detail the broad-band observations of this burst by Swift. Then by applying a simple model for the dynamics and the synchrotron radiation of a relativistic shock, we show that the dominant component of the early emissions in optical wavelengths has the same origin as the tail emission produced after the main gamma-ray activity. The most plausible explanation for the peak in the optical light curve seems to be the cooling of the prompt after the main collisions, shifting the characteristic synchrotron frequency to the optical bands. The fact that the early emission in X-ray does not show a steep decay, like what is observed in many other GRBs, is further evidence for slow cooling of the prompt shell within this GRB. It seems that the cooling process requires a steepening of the electron energy distribution and/or a break in this distribution at high energies. From simultaneous gamma-ray emission during the first flare, the behaviour of hardness ratio, and the lack of spectral features, we conclude that the X-ray flares are due to the collision of late shells rather than late reprocessing of the central engine activities. The sharp break in the X-ray light curve at few thousands of seconds after the trigger, is not observed in the infrared/optical/ultraviolet bands, and therefore cannot be a jet break. Either the X-ray break is due to a change in the spectrum of the accelerated electrons or the lack of an optical break is due to the presence of a related delayed response component.Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 03/2008; 385(1):453 - 467. · 4.90 Impact Factor -
Article: GRB 060313: A New Paradigm for Short-Hard Bursts?
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ABSTRACT: We report the simultaneous observations of the prompt emission in the gamma-ray and hard X-ray bands by the Swift-BAT and the KONUS-Wind instruments of the short-hard burst, GRB 060313. The observations reveal multiple peaks in both the gamma-ray and hard X-ray bands suggesting a highly variable outflow from the central explosion. We also describe the early-time observations of the X-ray and UV/Optical afterglows by the Swift XRT and UVOT instruments. The combination of the X-ray and UV/Optical observations provide the most comprehensive lightcurves to date of a short-hard burst at such an early epoch. The afterglows exhibit complex structure with different decay indices and flaring. This behavior can be explained by the combination of a structured jet, radiative loss of energy, and decreasing microphysics parameters occurring in a circum-burst medium with densities varying by a factor of approximately two on a length scale of 10^17 cm. These density variations are normally associated with the environment of a massive star and inhomogeneities in its windy medium. However, the mean density of the observed medium (n approximately 10^−4 cm^3) is much less than that expected for a massive star. Although the collapse of a massive star as the origin of GRB 060313 is unlikely, the merger of a compact binary also poses problems for explaining the behavior of this burst. Two possible suggestions for explaining this scenario are: some short bursts may arise from a mechanism that does not invoke the conventional compact binary model, or soft late-time central engine activity is producing UV/optical but no X-ray flaring.05/2006;
