English

Surprise in simplicity: an unusual spectral evolution of a single pulse GRB 151006A

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2017-09-20 v1

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of GRB 151006A, the first GRB detected by Astrosat CZT Imager (CZTI). We study the long term spectral evolution by exploiting the capabilities of \emph{Fermi} and \emph{Swift} satellites at different phases, which is complemented by the polarization measurement with the CZTI. While the light curve of the GRB in different energy bands show a simple pulse profile, the spectrum shows an unusual evolution. The first phase exhibits a hard-to-soft (HTS) evolution until 1620\sim16-20\,s, followed by a sudden increase in the spectral peak reaching a few MeV. Such a dramatic change in the spectral evolution in case of a single pulse burst is reported for the first time. This is captured by all models we used namely, Band function, Blackbody+Band and two blackbodies+power law. Interestingly, the \emph{Fermi} Large Area Telescope (LAT) also detects its first photon (>100>100\,MeV) during this time. This new injection of energy may be associated with either the beginning of afterglow phase, or a second hard pulse of the prompt emission itself which, however, is not seen in the otherwise smooth pulse profile. By constructing Bayesian blocks and studying the hardness evolution we find a good evidence for a second hard pulse. The \emph{Swift} data at late epochs (>T90>T_{90} of the GRB) also shows a significant spectral evolution consistent with the early second phase. The CZTI data (100--350\,keV), though having low significance (1σ1\sigma), show high values of polarization in the two epochs (77%77\% to 94%94\%), in agreement with our interpretation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1707.09924,
  title  = {Surprise in simplicity: an unusual spectral evolution of a single pulse GRB 151006A},
  author = {R. Basak and S. Iyyani and V. Chand and T. Chattopadhyay and D. Bhattacharya and A. R. Rao and S. V. Vadawale},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1707.09924},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

13 pages, accepted for publication in MNRAS