Abstract
At redshift
z
= 4.618, GRB 220101A is the most distant gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected by Fermi/LAT to date. It is also a very energetic event, with an equivalent isotropic energy of 3.6 × 10
...54
erg. We jointly analyzed the Fermi/GBM and LAT observations of GRB 220101A with two independent approaches and found a significant spectral break at sub-100 MeV energies during the prompt emission. The fast variability of the emission suggests that this spectral attenuation is caused by internal opacity to pair creation. Regardless of the nature of the emission processes assumed in the spectral analysis, we infer a moderate value for the jet Lorentz factor, Γ ∼ 110, and find that all of the high-energy emission was produced above and near the photosphere, at a distance of ∼10
14
cm from the central engine. We compare these results with the four other LAT-detected GRBs with similar properties.
GRB 221009A: The BOAT Burns, Eric; Svinkin, Dmitry; Fenimore, Edward ...
Astrophysical journal. Letters,
03/2023, Volume:
946, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract GRB 221009A has been referred to as the brightest of all time (BOAT). We investigate the veracity of this statement by comparing it with a half century of prompt gamma-ray burst ...observations. This burst is the brightest ever detected by the measures of peak flux and fluence. Unexpectedly, GRB 221009A has the highest isotropic-equivalent total energy ever identified, while the peak luminosity is at the ∼99th percentile of the known distribution. We explore how such a burst can be powered and discuss potential implications for ultralong and high-redshift gamma-ray bursts. By geometric extrapolation of the total fluence and peak flux distributions, GRB 221009A appears to be a once-in-10,000-year event. Thus, it is almost certainly not the BOAT over all of cosmic history; it may be the brightest gamma-ray burst since human civilization began.
HERMES Pathfinder is an in-orbit demonstration consisting of a constellation of six 3U nano-satellites hosting simple but innovative detectors for the monitoring of cosmic high-energy transients. The ...main objective of HERMES Pathfinder is to prove that accurate position of high-energy cosmic transients can be obtained using miniaturized hardware. The transient position is obtained by studying the delay time of arrival of the signal to different detectors hosted by nano-satellites on low-Earth orbits. In this context, we need to develop novel tools to fully exploit the future scientific data output of HERMES Pathfinder. In this paper, we introduce a new framework to assess the background count rate of a spaceborne, high energy detector; a key step towards the identification of faint astrophysical transients. We employ a neural network to estimate the background lightcurves on different timescales. Subsequently, we employ a fast change-point and anomaly detection technique called Poisson-FOCuS to identify observation segments where statistically significant excesses in the observed count rate relative to the background estimate exist. We test the new software on archival data from the NASA Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), which has a collecting area and background level of the same order of magnitude to those of HERMES Pathfinder. The neural network performances are discussed and analyzed over period of both high and low solar activity. We were able to confirm events in the Fermi-GBM catalog, both solar flares and gamma-ray bursts, and found events, not present in Fermi-GBM database, that could be attributed to solar flares, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, gamma-ray bursts and galactic X-ray flashes. Seven of these are selected and further analyzed, providing an estimate of localisation and a tentative classification.
ABSTRACT A bright long gamma-ray burst GRB 141207A was observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and detected by both instruments onboard. The observations show that the spectrum in the prompt ...phase is not well described by the canonical empirical Band function alone, and that an additional power-law component is needed. In the early phase of the prompt emission, a modified blackbody with a hard low-energy photon index ( = +0.2 to +0.4) is detected, which suggests a photospheric origin. In a finely time-resolved analysis, the spectra are also well fitted by the modified blackbody combined with a power-law function. We discuss the physical parameters of the photosphere such as the bulk Lorentz factor of the relativistic flow and the radius. We also discuss the physical origin of the extra power-law component observed during the prompt phase in the context of different models such as leptonic and hadronic scenarios in the internal shock regime and synchrotron emission in the external forward shock. In the afterglow phase, the temporal and spectral behaviors of the temporally extended high-energy emission and the fading X-ray emission detected by the X-Ray Telescope on-board Swift are consistent with synchrotron emission in a radiative external forward shock.
The light curves of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to result from internal shocks reflecting the activity of the GRB central engine. Their temporal deconvolution can reveal potential ...differences in the properties of the central engines in the two populations of GRBs which are believed to originate from the deaths of massive stars (long) and from mergers of compact objects (short). We present here the results of the temporal analysis of 42 GRBs detected with the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. We deconvolved the profiles into pulses, which we fit with lognormal functions. The distributions of the pulse shape parameters and intervals between neighboring pulses are distinct for both burst types and also fit with lognormal functions. We have studied the evolution of these parameters in different energy bands and found that they differ between long and short bursts. We discuss the implications of the differences in the temporal properties of long and short bursts within the framework of the internal shock model for GRB prompt emission.
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are among the most powerful astrophysical phenomena. Recent observations are shedding light into their high-energy emission properties. Here I will review GRB observations ...made by the Fermi instruments, the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM), and the Large Area Telescope (LAT). I will discuss the main observational properties of the detected bursts presented in the more recent GBM and LAT GRB catalogs.
Aims. We aim to obtain high-quality time-resolved spectral fits of gamma-ray bursts observed by the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Methods. We performed ...time-resolved spectral analysis with high temporal and spectral resolution of the brightest bursts observed by Fermi GBM in its first four years of mission. Results. We present the complete catalog containing 1491 spectra from 81 bursts with high spectral and temporal resolution. Distributions of parameters, statistics of the parameter populations, parameter-parameter and parameter-uncertainty correlations, and their exact values are obtained and presented as main results in this catalog. We report a criterion that is robust enough to automatically distinguish between different spectral evolutionary trends between bursts. We also search for plausible blackbody emission components and find that only three bursts (36 spectra in total) show evidence of a pure Planck function. It is observed that peak energy and the averaged, time-resolved power-law index at low energy are slightly harder than the time-integrated values. Time-resolved spectroscopic results should be used instead of time-integrated results when interpreting physics from the observed spectra.
In this catalog we present the updated set of spectral analyses of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor during its first four years of operation. It contains two ...types of spectra, time-integrated spectral fits and spectral fits at the brightest time bin, from 943 triggered GRBs. Four different spectral models were fitted to the data, resulting in a compendium of more than 7500 spectra. The analysis was performed similarly but not identically to Goldstein et al. All 487 GRBs from the first two years have been re-fitted using the same methodology as that of the 456 GRBs in years three and four. We describe, in detail, our procedure and criteria for the analysis and present the results in the form of parameter distributions both for the observer-frame and rest-frame quantities. The data files containing the complete results are available from the High-Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center.
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