Panchromatic study of GRB 060124: from precursor to afterglow
Abstract
We present observations of GRB 060124, the first event for which both the prompt and the afterglow emission could be observed simultaneously and in their entirety by the three Swift instruments and by Konus-Wind. Thanks to these exceptional circumstances, the temporal and spectral properties of the prompt emission could be studied in the optical, X-ray and gamma-ray ranges (up to 2 MeV). While the X-ray emission (0.2-10 keV) clearly tracks the gamma-ray burst, the optical component follows a different pattern, likely indicating a different origin, possibly the onset of external shocks. The prompt GRB spectrum shows significant spectral evolution, with both the peak energy and the spectral index varying. As observed in several long GRBs, significant lags are measured between the hard- and low-energy components, showing that this behaviour extends over 3 decades in energy. The GRB peaks are also much broader at soft energies. This is related to the temporal evolution of the spectrum, and can be accounted for by the softening of the electron spectral index with time. The burst energy (E_iso~5x10^{53} erg at z=2.297) and average peak energy (E_p~300 keV) make GRB 060124 consistent with the Amati relation. The X-ray afterglow is characterized by a decay which presents a break at t_b~10^5s.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0612494,
title = {Panchromatic study of GRB 060124: from precursor to afterglow},
author = {P. Romano and S. Campana and G. Chincarini and J. Cummings and G. Cusumano and S. T. Holland and V. Mangano and T. Mineo and K. L. Page and V. Pal'shin and E. Rol and T. Sakamoto and B. Zhang and R. Aptekar and S. Barbier and S. Barthelmy and A. P. Beardmore and P. Boyd and D. N. Burrows and M. Capalbi and E. E. Fenimore and D. Frederiks and N. Gehrels and P. Giommi and M. R. Goad and O. Godet and S. Golenetskii and D. Guetta and J. A. Kennea and V. La Parola and D. Malesani and F. Marshall and A. Moretti and J. A. Nousek and P. T. O'Brien and J. P. Osborne and M. Perri and G. Tagliaferri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0612494},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures. Proceedings of `SWIFT and GRBs: Unveiling the Relativistic Universe', June 5-9, 2006 Venice (Italy), to appear in Il Nuovo Cimento