Supermassive black holes have powerful gravitational fields with strong gradients that can destroy stars that get too close, producing a bright flare in ultraviolet and X-ray spectral regions from ...stellar debris that forms an accretion disk around the black hole. The aftermath of this process may have been seen several times over the past two decades in the form of sparsely sampled, slowly fading emission from distant galaxies, but the onset of the stellar disruption event has not hitherto been observed. Here we report observations of a bright X-ray flare from the extragalactic transient Swift J164449.3+573451. This source increased in brightness in the X-ray band by a factor of at least 10,000 since 1990 and by a factor of at least 100 since early 2010. We conclude that we have captured the onset of relativistic jet activity from a supermassive black hole. A companion paper comes to similar conclusions on the basis of radio observations. This event is probably due to the tidal disruption of a star falling into a supermassive black hole, but the detailed behaviour differs from current theoretical models of such events.
We present a systematic temporal and spectral study of all Swift-X-ray Telescope observations of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows discovered between 2005 January and 2007 December. After constructing ...and fitting all light curves and spectra to power-law models, we classify the components of each afterglow in terms of the canonical X-ray afterglow and test them against the closure relations of the forward shock models for a variety of parameter combinations. The closure relations are used to identify potential jet breaks with characteristics including the uniform jet model with and without lateral spreading and energy injection, and a power-law structured jet model, all with a range of parameters. With this technique, we survey the X-ray afterglows with strong evidence for jet breaks (~12% of our sample), and reveal cases of potential jet breaks that do not appear plainly from the light curve alone (another ~30%), leading to insight into the missing jet break problem. Those X-ray light curves that do not show breaks or have breaks that are not consistent with one of the jet models are explored to place limits on the times of unseen jet breaks. The distribution of jet break times ranges from a few hours to a few weeks with a median of ~1 day, similar to what was found pre-Swift. On average, Swift GRBs have lower isotropic equivalent gamma -ray energies, which in turn result in lower collimation corrected gamma -ray energies than those of pre-Swift GRBs. Finally, we explore the implications for GRB jet geometry and energetics.
One of the most exciting near-term prospects in physics is the potential discovery of gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors. To maximize both the confidence of the detection ...and the science return, it is essential to identify an electromagnetic counterpart. This is not trivial, as the events are expected to be poorly localized, particularly in the near-term, with error regions covering hundreds or even thousands of square degrees. In this paper, we discuss the prospects for finding an X-ray counterpart to a gravitational wave trigger with the Swift X-ray Telescope, using the assumption that the trigger is caused by a binary neutron star merger which also produces a short gamma-ray burst. We show that it is beneficial to target galaxies within the GW error region, highlighting the need for substantially complete galaxy catalogues out to distances of 300 Mpc. We also show that nearby, on-axis short GRBs are either extremely rare, or are systematically less luminous than those detected to date. We consider the prospects for detecting afterglow emission from an off-axis GRB which triggered the GW facilities, finding that the detectability, and the best time to look, are strongly dependent on the characteristics of the burst such as circumburst density and our viewing angle.
ABSTRACT We present observations by the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM) of the nearby (z = 0.55) GRB 101219B. This burst is a long GRB, with an associated supernova and ...with a blackbody (BB) component detected in the early afterglow observed by the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT). Here we show that the prompt gamma-ray emission has a BB spectrum, making this the second such burst observed by Fermi GBM. The properties of the BB, together with the redshift and our estimate of the radiative efficiency makes it possible to calculate the absolute values of the properties of the outflow. We obtain an initial Lorentz factor Γ = 138 8, a photospheric radius cm, and a launch radius cm. The latter value is close to the black hole and suggests that the jet has a relatively unobstructed path through the star. There is no smooth connection between the BB components seen by GBM and XRT, ruling out the scenario that the late emission is due to high-latitude effects. In the interpretation that the XRT BB is prompt emission due to late central engine activity, the jet either has to be very wide or have a clumpy structure where the emission originates from a small patch. Other explanations for this component, such as emission from a cocoon surrounding the jet, are also possible.
AN EXTERNAL SHOCK ORIGIN OF GRB 141028A Burgess, J. Michael; Bégué, Damien; Ryde, Felix ...
The Astrophysical journal,
05/2016, Letnik:
822, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
ABSTRACT The prompt emission of the long, smooth, and single-pulsed gamma-ray burst, GRB 141028A, is analyzed under the guise of an external shock model. First, we fit the γ-ray spectrum with a ...two-component photon model, namely, synchrotron+blackbody, and then fit the recovered evolution of the synchrotron F peak to an analytic model derived considering the emission of a relativistic blast wave expanding into an external medium. The prediction of the model for the F peak evolution matches well with the observations. We observe the blast wave transitioning into the deceleration phase. Furthermore, we assume the expansion of the blast wave to be nearly adiabatic, motivated by the low magnetic field deduced from the observations. This allows us to recover within an order of magnitude the flux density at the F peak, which is remarkable considering the simplicity of the analytic model. Under this scenario we argue that the distinction between prompt and afterglow emission is superfluous as both early-time emission and late-time emission emanate from the same source. While the external shock model is clearly not a universal solution, this analysis opens the possibility that at least some fraction of GRBs can be explained with an external shock origin of their prompt phase.
The Fermi-LAT Lightcurve Repository Abdollahi, S.; Ajello, M.; Baldini, L. ...
The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series,
04/2023, Letnik:
265, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) lightcurve repository (LCR) is a publicly available, continually updated library of gamma-ray lightcurves of variable Fermi-LAT sources generated over ...multiple timescales. The Fermi-LAT LCR aims to provide publication-quality lightcurves binned on timescales of 3, 7, and 30 days for 1525 sources deemed variable in the source catalog of the first 10 yr of Fermi-LAT observations. The repository consists of lightcurves generated through full likelihood analyses that model the sources and the surrounding region, providing fluxes and photon indices for each time bin. The LCR is intended as a resource for the time-domain and multimessenger communities by allowing users to search LAT data quickly to identify correlated variability and flaring emission episodes from gamma-ray sources. We describe the sample selection and analysis employed by the LCR and provide an overview of the associated data access portal.
We present the first Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow catalog. The catalog contains data from over 64,000 independent UVOT image observations of 229 GRBs ...first detected by Swift, the High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE2), the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), and the Interplanetary Network (IPN). The catalog covers GRBs occurring during the period from 2005 January 17 to 2007 June 16 and includes ~86% of the bursts detected by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT). The catalog provides detailed burst positional, temporal, and photometric information extracted from each of the UVOT images. Positions for bursts detected at the 3 sigma level are provided with a nominal accuracy, relative to the USNO-B1 catalog, of ~025. Photometry for each burst is given in three UV bands, three optical bands, and a 'white' or open filter. Upper limits for magnitudes are reported for sources detected below 3 sigma . General properties of the burst sample and light curves, including the filter-dependent temporal slopes, are also provided. The majority of the UVOT light curves, for bursts detected at the 3 sigma level, can be fit by a single power-law, with a median temporal slope ( alpha ) of 0.96, beginning several hundred seconds after the burst trigger and ending at ~1 X 105 s. The median UVOT v-band (~5500 A) magnitude at 2000 s for a sample of 'well'-detected bursts is 18.02. The UVOT flux interpolated to 2000 s after the burst, shows relatively strong correlations with both the prompt Swift BAT fluence, and the Swift X-ray flux at 11 hr after the trigger.
The Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (ALIGO) observatory recently reported the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GW) which triggered ALIGO on 2015 September ...14. We report on observations taken with the Swift satellite two days after the trigger. No new X-ray, optical, UV or hard X-ray sources were detected in our observations, which were focused on nearby galaxies in the GW error region and covered 4.7 deg2 (∼2 per cent of the probability in the rapidly available GW error region; 0.3 per cent of the probability from the final GW error region, which was produced several months after the trigger). We describe the rapid Swift response and automated analysis of the X-ray telescope and UV/Optical telescope data, and note the importance to electromagnetic follow-up of early notification of the progenitor details inferred from GW analysis.
ABSTRACT We present a correlation between the average temporal decay ( ) and early-time luminosity ( ) of X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts as observed by the Swift X-ray Telescope. Both ...quantities are measured relative to a rest-frame time of 200 s after the γ-ray trigger. The luminosity-average decay correlation does not depend on specific temporal behavior and contains one scale-independent quantity minimizing the role of selection effects. This is a complementary correlation to that discovered by Oates et al. in the optical light curves observed by the Swift Ultraviolet Optical Telescope. The correlation indicates that, on average, more luminous X-ray afterglows decay faster than less luminous ones, indicating some relative mechanism for energy dissipation. The X-ray and optical correlations are entirely consistent once corrections are applied and contamination is removed. We explore the possible biases introduced by different light-curve morphologies and observational selection effects, and how either geometrical effects or intrinsic properties of the central engine and jet could explain the observed correlation.
ABSTRACT
Correlations between intrinsic properties of gamma-ray burst (GRB) light curves provide clues to the nature of the central engine, the jet, and a possible means to standardize GRBs for ...cosmological use. Here, we report on the discovery of a correlation between the intrinsic early-time luminosity, LG,10 s, measured at rest frame 10 s, and the average decay rate measured from rest frame 10 s onward, $\alpha _{\mathrm{G,avg\gt 10\, s}}$, in a sample of 13 Fermi Large Area Telescope long GRB light curves. We note that our selection criteria, in particular the requirement for a redshift to construct luminosity light curves, naturally limits our sample to energetic GRBs. A Spearman’s rank correlation gives a coefficient of –0.74, corresponding to a confidence level of 99.6 per cent, indicating that brighter afterglows decay faster than less luminous ones. Assuming a linear relation with log(LG,10s), we find $\alpha _{\mathrm{G,avg\gt 10\, s}}$$= -0.31_{-0.09}^{+0.12}\log ($LG,10s$) + 14.43_{-5.97}^{+4.55}$. The slope of −0.31 is consistent at 1σ with previously identified correlations in the optical/ultraviolet and X-ray light curves. We speculate that differences in the rate at which energy is released by the central engine or differences in observer viewing angle may be responsible for the correlation.
PDF
