Related papers: Dust sublimation by GRBs and its implications

We report near-infrared and optical follow-up observations of the afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst 000418 starting 2.5 days after the occurrence of the burst and extending over nearly seven weeks. GRB 000418 represents the second case for…

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous electromagnetic explosions in the Universe, which emit up to $8.8\times10^{54}$ erg isotropic equivalent energy in the hard X-ray band. The high luminosity makes them detectable out to the…

The optical light-curves of GRB afterglows 990123 and 021211 exhibit a steep decay at 100--600 seconds after the burst, the decay becoming slower after about 10 minutes. We investigate two scenarios for the fast decaying early optical…

We present a proof-of-concept study that dust extinction curves can be extracted from the infrared (IR), optical, ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray afterglow observations of GRBs without assuming known extinction laws. We focus on GRB 050525A (z =…

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are detectable out to very large distances and as such are potentially powerful cosmological probes. Historically, the angular distribution of GRBs provided important information about their origin and physical…

The interaction of a relativistic fireball with its ambient medium is described through two shocks: a reverse shock that propagates into the fireball, and a forward shock that propagates into the medium. The observed optical flash of GRB…

The composition and amount of interstellar dust within gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies is of key importance when addressing selection effects in the GRB redshift distribution, and when studying the properties of their host galaxies. As…

The most energetic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are remarkable sources releasing huge amounts of energy on short timescales. Their prompt emission, which usually lasts few seconds, is so bright that it is visible across the whole observable…

We show that if all gamma-ray bursts emit X-rays in a way similar to those observed by BeppoSax, much of the extinction along the line of sight in the host galaxy of the burst can be destroyed. Two mechanisms are principally responsible for…

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are tremendous explosions visible across most of the Universe, certainly out to redshifts of z=4.5 and likely out to z~10. Recently, GRBs have been found to have a roughly constant explosive energy as well as to have…

Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are bright flashes of high energy photons that can last from about 10 milliseconds to 10 minutes. Their origin and nature have puzzled the scientific community for about 25 years until 1997, when the first X-ray…

In this paper we examine gamma-ray and optical data of GRB 091024, a gamma-ray burst (GRB) with an extremely long duration of T90~1020 s, as observed with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM). We present spectral analysis of all three…

A dust scattering model was recently proposed to explain the shallow X-ray decay (plateau) observed prevalently in Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) early afterglows. In this model the plateau is the scattered prompt X-ray emission by the dust located…

Two new expanding X-ray rings were detected by the Swift XRT instrument during early follow-up observations of GRB 061019 and GRB 070129, increasing to 5 the number of dust scattering X-ray halos observed around GRBs. Although these two…

Deriving the physical properties of red supergiants (RSGs) depends upon accurate corrections for reddening by dust. We use our recent modeling of the optical spectra of RSGs to address this topic. We find: (1) Previous broad-band studies…

The duration of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) is a key indicator of its physics origin, with long bursts perhaps associated with the collapse of massive stars and short bursts with mergers of neutron stars.However, there is substantial overlap in…

Although it is well recognized that gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are obscured and reddened by dust in their host galaxies, the wavelength-dependence and quantity of dust extinction are still poorly known. Current studies on this mostly…

Gamma-ray bursts of short duration may harbor vital clues to the range of phenomena producing bursts. However, recent progress from the observation of optical counterparts has not benefitted the study of short bursts. We have searched for…

Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most luminous known electromagnetic radiation sources in the Universe for the 3 to 300 sec of their prompt flashes (isotropic X/ gamma-ray luminosities up to 10^53 ergs/sec). Their afterglows have first…

We continue our systematic statistical study on optical afterglow data of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We present the apparent magnitude distributions of early optical afterglows at different epochs (t= 10^2 s, t = 10^3 s, and 1 hour) for the…