Related papers: Heterogeneity in Short Gamma-ray Bursts
Observations of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) with Swift produced the initially surprising result that many bursts have large X-ray flares superimposed on the underlying afterglow. The flares were sometimes intense, had rapid rise and decay…
Short-hard and long-soft gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are two distinct phenomena, but their prompt and afterglow emission show many similarities. This suggests that two different progenitor systems lead to similar physical processes and that the…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are ultra-relativistic collimated outflows, which emit synchrotron radiation throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum when they interact with their environment. This afterglow emission enables us to probe the…
We report the simultaneous observations of the prompt emission in the gamma-ray and hard X-ray bands by the Swift-BAT and the KONUS-Wind instruments of the short-hard burst, GRB 060313. The observations reveal multiple peaks in both the…
Short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) are widely believed to result from the mergers of compact binaries. This model predicts an afterglow that bears the characteristic signatures of a constant, low density medium, including a smooth…
The electron energy distribution index, p, is a fundamental parameter of the synchrotron emission from a range of astronomical sources. Here we examine one such source of synchrotron emission, Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows observed by the…
Preliminary results of our analysis on the extended emission of short/medium duration GRBs observed with Swift/BAT are presented. The Bayesian blocks algorithm is used to analyze the burst durations and the temporal structure of the…
BAT and XRT observations of two recent well-covered GRBs observed by Swift, GRB 050315 and GRB 050319, show clearly a prompt component joining the onset of the afterglow emission. By fitting a power law form to the gamma-ray spectrum, we…
Almost all the X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the Swift satellite have a shallow decay phase in the first thousands of seconds. We show that in an inhomogeneous jet (multiple-subjet or patchy-shell) model the…
We present observations of the early X-ray emission for a sample of 40 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) obtained using the Swift satellite for which the narrow-field instruments were pointed at the burst within 10 minutes of the trigger. Using data…
Well-sampled optical lightcurves of 146 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are complied from the literature. Multiple optical emission components are extracted with power-law function fits to these lightcurves. We present a systematical analysis for…
Swift discovered XRF 050416A with the BAT and began observing it with its narrow field instruments only 64.5 s after the burst onset. Its very soft spectrum classifies this event as an X-ray flash. The afterglow X-ray emission was monitored…
We studied the optical afterglows of the 24 pre-Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts with known spectroscopic redshift and published estimates of the optical extinction in the source frame. We find an unexpected clustering of the optical afterglow…
Early X-ray afterglows recently detected by {\it Swift} frequently show a phase of very shallow flux decay lasting from $\sim 10^{2.5} $s up to $\sim 10^4 $s, followed by a steeper, more familiar decay. We suggest that the flat early part…
Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are considered to be originated from core collapse of massive stars. It is believed that the afterglow property is determined by the density of the material in the surrounding interstellar medium. Therefore, the…
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) X-ray light curves exhibit a variety of complex temporal structures, such as flares and plateaus. The origin of flares seen in many GRB early afterglows is still uncertain. Here, we analyze a sample of 89 GRBs, 61 of…
The Swift satellite has enabled us to follow the evolution of gamma-ray burst (GRB) fireballs from the prompt gamma-ray emission to the afterglow phase. The early x-ray and optical data obtained by telescopes aboard the Swift satellite show…
We present a comprehensive statistical analysis of Swift X-ray light-curves of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), with more than 650 GRBs. Two questions drive this effort: (1) Does the X-ray emission retain any kind of memory of the prompt phase? (2)…
We report the results of the Swift and XMM observations of the Swift-discovered long Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 060729 ($T_{90}$=115s). The afterglow of this burst was exceptionally bright in X-rays as well as at UV/Optical wavelengths showing an…
Most X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the Swift satellite have a shallow decay phase t^{-1/2} in the first few hours. This is not predicted by the standard afterglow model and needs an explanation. We discuss that the…