The role of afterglow break-times as GRB jet angle indicators

Abstract

The early X-ray light curve of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) is complex, and shows a typical steep-flat-steep behaviour. The time T_a at which the flat (plateau) part ends may bear some important physical information, especially if it plays the same role of the so called jet break time t_jet. To this aim, stimulated by the recent analysis of Willingale et al., we have assembled a sample of GRBs of known redshifts, spectral parameters of the prompt emission, and T_a. By using T_a as a jet angle indicator, and then estimating the collimation corrected prompt energetics, we find a correlation between the latter quantity and the peak energy of the prompt emission. However, this correlation has a large dispersion, similar to the dispersion of the Amati correlation and it is not parallel to the Ghirlanda correlation. Furthermore, we show that the correlation itself results mainly from the dependence of the jet opening angle on the isotropic prompt energy, with the time T_a playing no role, contrary to what we find for the jet break time t_jet. We also find that for the bursts in our sample T_a weakly correlates with E_iso of the prompt emission, but that this correlation disappears when considering all bursts of known redshift and T_a. There is no correlation between T_a and the isotropic energy of the plateau phase.