arXiv subjects

T. Lu

Publications and source records attributed to T. Lu.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2004

Gamma-Ray Bursts: Polarization of Afterglows from Two-Component Jets

Polarization behaviors of optical afterglows from two-component gamma-ray burst jets are investigated, assuming various configurations for the two components. In most cases, the observed polarization is dominated by the inner narrow component for a long period. Interestingly, it is revealed that different assumptions about the lateral expansion of the jet can lead to different evolutions of the position angle of polarization. The observed afterglow light curve and polarization behaviors of GRB 020813 can be well explained by the two-component jet model. Particularly, the model is able to explain the constancy of the observed position angle in this event, given that the line of sight is slightly outside the narrow component.

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arXiv2004

Analytical light curves in the realistic model for GRB afterglows

(abridged) Afterglow light curves are constructed analytically for realistic gamma-ray burst remnants decelerating in either a homogeneous interstellar medium or a stellar wind environment, taking into account the radiative loss of the blast wave, which affects the temporal behaviors significantly. Inverse Compton scattering is considered. The inverse Compton effect prolongs the fast-cooling phase markedly, during which the relativistic shock is semi-radiative and the radiation efficiency is approximately constant. It is further shown that the shock is still semi-radiative for quite a long time after it transits into the slow-cooling phase. The temporal decaying index of the X-ray afterglow light curve in this semi-radiative phase is more consistent with the observed $<α_{X}> \sim 1.3$ than the commonly used adiabatic one. To manifest as a bump or even dominant in the X-ray afterglows during the relativistic stage, it is required that the density should be larger than about 1-10 cm$^{-3}$ in the interstellar medium case, or the wind parameter $A_{\ast}$ should be larger than unity in the stellar wind case.

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arXiv2004

Beaming effects in GRBs and orphan afterglows

The overall dynamical evolution and radiation mechanism of $γ$-ray burst jets are briefly introduced. Various interesting topics concerning beaming in $γ$-ray bursts are discussed, including jet structures, orphan afterglows and cylindrical jets. The possible connection between $γ$-ray bursts and neutron star kicks is also addressed.

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arXiv2003

Rebrightening of XRF 030723: further evidence for a two-component jet in gamma-ray burst

Optical afterglows from two-component jets under various configurations are investigated numerically. Generally, the light curve is characterized by a rapid rebrightening when the observer is off-axis with respect to the narrow component, with the amplitude and peak time depending on detailed parameters. We further show that the optical afterglow of XRF 030723, especially its notable and rapid rebrightening, can be well explained by a typical two-component jet. This X-ray flash, together with GRB 030329, strongly hints the two-component jet model as a unified picture for X-ray flashes and gamma-ray bursts. With a narrow but ultra-relativistic inner outflow and a wide but less energetic outer ejecta, a two-component jet will be observed as a typical gamma-ray burst if our line of sight is within the angular scope of the narrow outflow. Otherwise, if the line of sight is within or slightly beyond the cone of the wide component, an X-ray flash will be detected.

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arXiv2003

Constraining the origin of TeV photons from gamma-ray bursts with delayed MeV-GeV emission formed by interaction with cosmic infrared/microwave background photons

It has been suggested that electromagnetic cascade of very high energy gamma-rays from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the infrared/microwave background can produce delayed MeV-GeV photons. This delay could be caused by the angular spreading effect of the scattered microwave photons or deflection of the secondly pairs due to intergalactic magnetic field. Very high energy TeV photons of GRBs could be produced by a few mechanisms including the proton-synchrotron radiation and electron inverse Compton emission from GRB internal shocks as well as external shocks. We suggest that the information provided by the delayed emission could give constraints on models for TeV gamma-rays. A more accurate calculation of the delayed time caused by the angular spreading effect is presented by considering recent observations of the extragalactic infrared background and the theoretic high-redshift infrared background. We also suggest that the dependence of the maximum time delay of scattered photons on their energies, if determined by future GLAST detector, could differentiate the two mechanisms causing the time delay.

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arXiv2003

GRB afterglows in the deep Newtonian phase

In many GRBs, afterglows have been observed for months or even years. It deserves noting that at such late stages, the remnants should have entered the deep Newtonian phase, during which the majority of shock-accelerated electrons will no longer be highly relativistic. However, a small portion of electrons are still ultra-relativistic and capable of emitting synchrotron radiation. Under the assumption that the electrons obey a power-law distribution according to their kinetic energy (not simply the Lorentz factor), we calculate optical afterglows from both isotropic fireballs and beamed ejecta, paying special attention to the late stages. In the beamed cases, it is found that the light curves are universally characterized by a flattening during the deep Newtonian phase. Implication of our results on orphan afterglows is also addressed.

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arXiv2003

Temporal variability in early afterglows of short gamma-ray bursts

The shock model has successfully explained the observed behaviors of afterglows from long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here we use it to investigate the so-called early afterglows from short GRBs, which arises from blast waves that are not decelerated considerably by their surrounding medium. We consider a nearby medium loaded with $e^{\pm}$ pairs (Beloborodov 2002). The temporal behaviors show first a soft-to-hard spectral evolution, from the optical to hard X-ray, and then a usual hard-to-soft evolution after the blast waves begin to decelerate. The light curves show variability, and consist of two peaks. The first peak, due to the pair effect, can be observed in the X-ray, though too faint and too short in the optical. The second peak will be easily detected by {\it Swift}. We show that detections of the double-peak structure in the light curves of early afterglows are very helpful to determine all the shock parameters of short GRBs, including both the parameters of the relativistic source and the surroundings. Besides, from the requirement that the forward-shock emission in short GRBs should be below the BATSE detection threshold, we give a strong constraint on the shock model parameters. In particular, the initial Lorentz factor of the source is limited to be no more than $\sim 10^3$, and the ambient medium density is inferred to be low, $n\la 10^{-1}$ cm$^{-3}$.

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arXiv2003

Pair loading in Gamma-Ray Burst Fireball And Prompt Emission From Pair-Rich Reverse Shock

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from ultra-relativistic winds/fireballs to avoid the "compactness problem". However, the most energetic photons in GRBs may still suffer from $γ-γ$ absorption leading to electron/positron pair production in the winds/fireballs. We show here that in a wide range of model parameters, the resulting pairs may dominate those electrons associated with baryons. Later on, the pairs would be carried into a reverse shock so that a shocked pair-rich fireball may produce a strong flash at lower frequencies, i.e. in the IR band, in contrast with optical/UV emission from a pair-poor fireball. The IR emission would show a 5/2 spectral index due to strong self-absorption. Rapid responses to GRB triggers in the IR band would detect such strong flashes. The future detections of many IR flashes will infer that the rarity of prompt optical/UV emissions is in fact due to dust obscuration in the star formation regions.

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arXiv2003

Optical Flash of GRB 990123: constraints on the physical parameter of the reverse shock

The optical flash accompanying GRB 990123 is believed to be powered by the reverse shock of a thin shell. With the best fitted physical parameters for GRB 990123 (Panaitescu & Kumar 2001) and the assumption that the parameters in the optical flash are the same as those in the afterglow, we show that: 1) the shell is thick but not thin, and we have provided the light curve for the thick shell case which coincides with the observation; 2) the theoretical peak flux of the optical flash accounts for only 3\times10^{-4} of the observed. In order to compensate this divergency, the physical parameters the electron energy ration and the magnetic ratio $ε_e$, $ε_B$ should be 0.61, 0.39 respectively, which are much different from those in the late afterglow.

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arXiv2003

Gamma-Ray Bursts from Neutron Star Kicks

The idea that gamma-ray bursts might be a kind of phenomena associated with neutron star kicks was first proposed by Dar & Plaga (1999). Here we study this mechanism in more detail and point out that the neutron star should be a high speed one (with proper motion larger than $\sim 1000$ km/s). It is shown that the model agrees well with observations in many aspects, such as the energetics, the event rate, the collimation, the bimodal distribution of durations, the narrowly clustered intrinsic energy, and the association of gamma-ray bursts with supernovae and star forming regions. We also discuss the implications of this model on the neutron star kick mechanism, and suggest that the high kick speed were probably acquired due to the electromagnetic rocket effect of a millisecond magnetar with an off-centered magnetic dipole.

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arXiv2003

Optical Flashes and Very Early Afterglows in Wind Environments

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 990123 has been considered to be the emission from such a reverse shock. The observational properties of afterglows suggest that the progenitors of some GRBs may be massive stars and their surrounding media may be stellar winds. We here study very early afterglows from the reverse and forward shocks in winds. An optical flash mainly arises from the relativistic reverse shock while a radio flare is produced by the forward shock. The peak flux densities of optical flashes are larger than 1 Jy for typical parameters, if we do not take into account some appropriate dust obscuration along the line of sight. The radio flare always has a long lasting constant flux, which will not be covered up by interstellar scintillation. The non-detections of optical flashes brighter than about 9th magnitude may constrain the GRBs isotropic energies to be no more than a few $10^{52}$ ergs and wind intensities to be relatively weak.

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arXiv2003

External shock model for the large-scale, relativistic X-ray jets from the microquasar XTE J1550-564

Large-scale, decelerating, relativistic X-ray jets due to material ejected from the black-hole candidate X-ray transient and microquasar XTE J1550-564 has been recently discovered with Chandra by Corbel et al. (2002). We find that the dynamical evolution of the eastern jet at the late time is consistent with the well-known Sedov evolutionary phase. A trans-relativistic external shock dynamic model by analogy with the evolution of gamma-ray burst remnants, is shown to be able to fit the observation data reasonably well. The inferred interstellar medium density around the source is well below the canonical value $n_ISM \sim 1 cm^{-3}$. We find that the emission from the continuously shocked interstellar medium (forward shock region) decays too slowly to be a viable mechanism for the eastern X-ray jet. However, the rapidly fading X-ray emission can be interpreted as synchrotron radiation from the non-thermal electrons in the adiabatically expanding ejecta. These electrons were accelerated by the reverse shock (moving back into the ejecta) which becomes important when the inertia of the swept external matter leads to an appreciable slowing down of the original ejecta. To ensure the dominance of the emission from the shocked ejecta over that from the forward shock region during the period of the observations, the magnetic field and electron energy fractions in the forward shock region must be far below equipartition. Future continuous, follow-up multi-wavelength observations of new ejection events from microquasars up to the significant deceleration phase should provide more valuable insight into the nature of the interaction between the jets and external medium.

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arXiv2002

Possible geometries of afterglow generation in the gamma-ray burst GRB990705

The absorption feature detected in the prompt X-ray emission of GRB990705 has important consequences for its circum-burst environment and therefore on its afterglows. Here we investigate whether the circum-burst environment constrained by the absorption feature could be consistent with the observed H-band afterglow, which exhibits an earlier power law decay but a much faster decay about one day after the burst. Two possible geometries of the afterglow-emitting regions are suggested: 1) afterglow emission produced by the impact of the fireball on the surrounding torus, which serves as the absorbing material of the X-ray feature, as would be expected in the models involving that a supernova explosion precedes the gamma-ray burst by some time; 2)afterglow emission produced in the dense circum-burst medium inside the torus. In case 1), the faster decay at the later time is attributed to the disappearance of the shock due to the counter-pressure in the hot torus illuminated by the burst and afterglow photons. For case 2), the circum-burst medium density is found to be very high ($n\ga 10^4-10^5 {\rm cm^{-3}}$) if the emitting plasma is a jet or even higher if it is spherical. Future better observations of afterglows of GRBs that have absorption features might make it possible to make a more definite choice between these two scenarios.

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arXiv2002

Emission Processes of High Energy Gamma Rays from Gamma-Ray Bursts

Synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) process in the reverse shocks of gamma-ray bursts is suggested to be responsible for the observed prompt high-energy gamma-ray emissions from several gamma-ray bursts. We find that the SSC emission from the reverse shocks dominates over other emission processes in energy bands from tens of MeV to tens of GeV, for a wide range of shock parameters. This model is favorable for escape of energetic photons from the emitting regions due to a lower internal pair-production optical depth, as the characteristic size of the reverse shock region is much larger than that of internal shocks. We predict that, in this model, the prompt high-energy emissions are correlated with the prompt optical flashes, which can be test in the forthcoming GLAST era.

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arXiv2002

Dynamical Evolution of Gamma-Ray Burst Remnants with Evolving Radiative Efficiency

In previous works, a generic dynamical model has been suggested by Huang et al., which is shown to be correct for both adiabatic and radiative blastwaves, and in both ultra-relativistic and non-relativistic phases. In deriving their equations, Huang et al. have assumed that the radiative efficiency of the fireball is constant. They then applied their model directly to realistic cases where the radiative efficiency evolves with time. In this paper, we abandon the above assumption and re-derive a more accurate dynamical equation for gamma-ray burst remnants. Numerical results show that Huang et al.'s model is accurate enough in general cases.

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arXiv2002

Early GeV afterglows from gamma-ray bursts in pulsar wind bubbles

Gamma-ray bursts may occur within pulsar wind bubbles (PWBs) under a number of scenarios, such as the supranova-like models in which the progenitor pulsar drives a powerful wind shocking against the ambient medium before it comes to death and produces a fireball. We here study the early afterglow emission from GRBs expanding into such a PWB environment. Different from the usual cold GRB external medium, the PWBs consist of a hot electron-positron medium with typical 'thermal' Lorentz factor of the order of gamma_w, the Lorentz factor of the pulsar particle wind. After GRB blast waves shock these hot electron-positron pairs, they will emit synchrotron radiation peaking at GeV bands. It is shown that GeV photons suffer negligible absorption by the soft photons radiation field in PWBs. Thus, strong GeV emissions in the early afterglow phases are expected, providing a plausible explanation for the long-duration GeV emission from GRB940217 detected by EGRET. Future GLAST may have the potential to test this GRB-PWB interaction model.

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arXiv2002

Long-term Neutrino Afterglows from Gamma-Ray Bursts

It is widely believed that multiwavelength afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) originate from relativistic blast waves. We here show that in such blast waves, a significant fraction of the energy of shock-accelerated protons would be lost due to pion production by interactions with afterglow photons. This could lead to long-term production of $10^{16}$--$10^{18}$ eV neutrinos and sub-TeV $γ$-rays that accompany with usual afterglows, provided that the protons are accelerated to $10^{19}$ eV in the blast waves.

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arXiv2002

Beaming Effects in Gamma-Ray Bursts

Based on a refined generic dynamical model, we investigate afterglows from jetted gamma-ray burst (GRB) remnants numerically. In the relativistic phase, the light curve break could marginally be seen. However, an obvious break does exist at the transition from the relativistic phase to the non-relativistic phase, which typically occurs at time 10 to 30 days. It is very interesting that the break is affected by many parameters, especially by the electron energy fraction (xi_e), and the magnetic energy fraction (xi_B^2). Implication of orphan afterglow surveys on GRB beaming is investigated. The possible existence of a kind of cylindrical jets is also discussed.

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