English

Evidence for a Bright-Edged Jet in the Optical/NIR Afterglow of GRB 160625B

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2019-03-06 v5

Abstract

Using deep and high-cadence gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow data from RATIR, we observe a sharp and achromatic light curve break 12.6 days after the GRB, accompanied by an approximately achromatic bump. Fitting of the optical, NIR, and X-ray data suggest a very narrow (2 degree) jet which remains collimated at late-time. We argue that the sharp light curve bump suggests an edge brightened jet, perhaps emitting only during a brief period of lateral jet expansion. The lightcurve also exhibits a gradual spectral evolution lasting >10>10 days. The evolution of the flux can be modeled as Flux(t[20days])α(λ[800nm])β\textrm{Flux} \sim \big(\frac{t}{[20 \textrm{days}]}\big)^\alpha \big(\frac{\lambda}{[800 \textrm{nm}]}\big)^\beta, with a temporal slope α=0.956±0.003\alpha=-0.956 \pm 0.003 and a gradually time-varying spectral slope β=(0.60±0.07)+(0.26±0.06)log(t20days)\beta = (0.60 \pm 0.07)+(0.26 \pm 0.06) \textrm{log}\big(\frac{t}{20 \rm{days}}\big).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1810.08852,
  title  = {Evidence for a Bright-Edged Jet in the Optical/NIR Afterglow of GRB 160625B},
  author = {Robert Strausbaugh and Nathaniel Butler and William H. Lee and Eleonora Troja and Alan M. Watson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1810.08852},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ