English

Time varying polarized gamma-rays from GRB 160821A: evidence for ordered magnetic fields

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2019-09-11 v1

Abstract

GRB 160821A is the third most energetic gamma ray burst observed by the {\it Fermi} gamma-ray space telescope. Based on the observations made by Cadmium Zinc Telluride Imager (CZTI) on board {\it AstroSat}, here we report the most conclusive evidence to date of (i) high linear polarization (6627+26%66^{+26}_{-27} \%; 5.3σ5.3 \sigma detection), and (ii) variation of its polarization angle with time happening twice during the rise and decay phase of the burst at 3.5σ3.5 \sigma and 3.1σ3.1 \sigma detections respectively. All confidence levels are reported for two parameters of interest. These observations strongly suggest synchrotron radiation produced in magnetic field lines which are highly ordered on angular scales of 1/Γ1/\Gamma, where Γ\Gamma is the Lorentz factor of the outflow.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.10885,
  title  = {Time varying polarized gamma-rays from GRB 160821A: evidence for ordered magnetic fields},
  author = {Vidushi Sharma and Shabnam Iyyani and Dipankar Bhattacharya and Tanmoy Chattopadhyay and A. R. Rao and E. Aarthy and Santosh V. Vadawale and N. P. S. Mithun and Varun. B. Bhalerao and Felix Ryde and Asaf Peer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.10885},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

12 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:59:19.077Z