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Gamma‐ray burst efficiency and possible physical processes shaping the early afterglow
Author(s) -
Fan Yizhong,
Piran Tsvi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10280.x
Subject(s) - gamma ray burst , afterglow , physics , astrophysics , kinetic energy , blast wave , shock wave , astronomy , mechanics , classical mechanics
The discovery by Swift that a good fraction of gamma‐ray bursts (GRBs) have a slowly decaying X‐ray afterglow phase led to the suggestion that energy injection into the blast wave takes place several hundred seconds after the burst. This implies that right after the burst the kinetic energy of the blast wave was very low and in turn the efficiency of production of γ‐rays during the burst was extremely high, rendering the internal shocks model unlikely. We re‐examine the estimates of kinetic energy in GRB afterglows and show that the efficiency of converting the kinetic energy into γ‐rays is moderate and does not challenge the standard internal shock model. We also examine several models, including in particular energy injection, suggested to interpret this slow decay phase. We show that with proper parameters, all these models give rise to a slow decline lasting several hours. However, even those models that fit all X‐ray observations, and in particular the energy injection model, cannot account self‐consistently for both the X‐ray and the optical afterglows of well‐monitored GRBs such as GRB 050319 and GRB 050401. We speculate about a possible alternative resolution of this puzzle.

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