The Slow Decay of Some Radio Afterglows, a Puzzle for the Simplest GRB Fireball Model

Abstract

Abridged: The decay of half of the GRB radio afterglows with long temporal monitoring is significantly slower than at optical frequencies, contrary to what is expected in the simplest fireball model. We investigate four ways to decouple the radio and optical decays: an evolving index of the power-law distribution of the shock-accelerated electrons, the presence of a spectral break between the two domains, a structured outflow, and a long-lived reverse shock contribution to the afterglow emission. [...] In the fourth scenario, it is assumed that the radio afterglow emission arises in the reverse shock propagating in a steady stream of ejecta, which catch up with the decelerating GRB remnant. This scenario can accommodate the properties of the afterglows with slow radio decays and requires that the injected energy is less than or comparable to the initial fireball energy, while other afterglow parameters have reasonable values. For a jet, the transition to a semi-relativistic motion mitigates the radio decay, however this scenario would work only when the slower radio decay is observed well after the steeper optical fall-off. A structured outflow with a relativistic core, yielding a fast decaying optical emission, and a non-relativistic envelope, producing a slowly falling-off radio afterglow, is not a viable solution, as it fails to decouple the radio and optical decays.