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- Laskar, Tanmoy, et al.
(författare)
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The Radio to GeV Afterglow of GRB 221009A
- 2023
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : American Astronomical Society. - 2041-8205 .- 2041-8213. ; 946:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- GRB 221009A ($z=0.151$) is one of the closest known long $gamma$-ray bursts (GRBs). Its extreme brightness across all electromagnetic wavelengths provides an unprecedented opportunity to study a member of this still-mysterious class of transients in exquisite detail. We present multi-wavelength observations of this extraordinary event, spanning 15 orders of magnitude in photon energy from radio to $gamma$-rays. We find that the data can be partially explained by a forward shock (FS) from a highly-collimated relativistic jet interacting with a low-density wind-like medium. The jet's beaming-corrected kinetic energy ($E_K sim 4times10<^>{50}$ erg) is typical for the GRB population, but its opening angle ($sim2<^>{circ}$) is one of the narrowest. The radio and mm data provide strong limiting constraints on the FS model, but require the presence of an additional emission component. From equipartition arguments, we find that the radio emission is likely produced by a small amount of mass ($lesssim6times10<^>{-7} M_odot$) moving relativistically ($Gammagtrsim9$) with a large kinetic energy ($gtrsim10<^>{49}$ erg). However, the temporal evolution of this component does not follow prescriptions for synchrotron radiation from a single power-law distribution of electrons (e.g. in a reverse shock or two-component jet), or a thermal electron population, perhaps suggesting that one of the standard assumptions of afterglow theory is violated. GRB 221009A will likely remain detectable with radio telescopes for years to come, providing a valuable opportunity to track the full lifecycle of a powerful relativistic jet.
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| 2. |
- Salafia, Om Sharan, et al.
(författare)
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Multiwavelength View of the Close-by GRB 190829A Sheds Light on Gamma-Ray Burst Physics
- 2022
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Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal Letters. - : American Astronomical Society. - 2041-8213 .- 2041-8205. ; 931:2
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We monitored the position of the close-by (about 370 Mpc) 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, carrying out a total of nine observations between 9 and 117 days after the gamma-ray burst at 5 and 15 GHz, with a typical resolution of a few milliarcseconds. From a state-of-the art analysis of these data, we obtained valuable limits on the source size and expansion rate. The limits are in agreement with the size evolution entailed by a detailed modeling of the multiwavelength light curves with a forward-plus-reverse shock model, which agrees with the observations across almost 18 orders of magnitude in frequency (including the HESS data at TeV photon energies) and more than 4 orders of magnitude in time. Thanks to the multiwavelength, 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 of less than or similar to 10(-3), a low fraction of relativistic electrons in the forward shock downstream chi ( e ) < 13% (90% credible level), and a rapid decay of the magnetic field in the reverse shock downstream after the shock crossing. While our model assumes an on-axis jet, our VLBI astrometry is not sufficiently tight as to exclude any off-axis viewing angle, but we can exclude the line of sight to have been more than similar to 2 degrees away from the border of the gamma-ray-producing region based on compactness arguments.
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