Swift Observations of GRB 070110: An Extraordinary X-Ray Afterglow Powered by the Central Engine

By E. Troja, G. Cusumano, P. O’Brien, B. Zhang, B. Sbarufatti, V. Mangano, R. Willingale, G. Chincarini, J. Osborne, Fiona Marshall and 14 more. 2007

244 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a detailed analysis of Swift multiwavelength observations of GRB 070110 and its remarkable afterglow. The early X-ray light curve, interpreted as the tail of the prompt emission, displays a spectral evolution already seen in other gamma-ray bursts. The optical afterglow shows a shallow decay up to ~2 days after the burst, which is not consistent with standard afterglow models. The most intriguing feature is a very steep decay in the X-ray flux at ~2 × 104 s after the burst, ending an apparent plateau. The abrupt drop of the X-ray light curve rules out an external shock as the origin of the plateau in this burst and implies long-lasting activity of the central engine. The temporal and spectral properties of the plateau phase point toward a continuous central engine emission rather than the episodic emission of X-ray flares. We suggest that the observed X-ray plateau is powered by a spinning-down central engine, possibly a millisecond pulsar, which dissipates energy at an internal radius before depositing energy into the external shock.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/682100374ed21738d8f6fb0b894d08e700119e7a

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. B. Metzger
3. E. Berger
4. Pawan Kumar
5. E. Quataert
6. P. Lasky
7. E. Liang
8. Binbin Zhang

In Instrumentation

1. Bing Zhang
2. E. Liang
3. Pawan Kumar
4. Binbin Zhang
5. E. Berger
6. B. Metzger
7. W. Lei
8. E. Quataert

In Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

1. Ramesh Narayan
2. P. Lasky
3. V. Ravi
4. J. Hjorth
5. D. Giannios
6. T. Thompson
7. B. Metzger
8. E. Quataert

Citations in the corpus

• The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, background): “Besides X-ray flares, there are a small fraction of GRBs which have plateaus in the X-ray lightcurve that are followed by a very steep decay that is more rapid than a fν ∝ t−3obs decline (e.g. GRB 070110 Troja et al., 2007), see Fig.12.”
• CONSTRAINING GAMMA-RAY BURST INITIAL LORENTZ FACTOR WITH THE AFTERGLOW ONSET FEATURE AND DISCOVERY OF A TIGHT Γ0–Eγ,iso CORRELATION (2009, background): “The third group includes some GRBs that show an ”internal plateau” that is followed by a rapid drop with a decay slope steeped than -3 (Liang et al. 2007; Troja et al. 2007; Lyons et al. 2009).”
• Signatures of magnetar central engines in short GRB light curves (2013, methodology): “Figure 5shows the prompt and plateau fluence are generally comparable, which is consistent with the result obtained for LGRBs.”
• THE OPTICALLY UNBIASED GAMMA-RAY BURST HOST (TOUGH) SURVEY. I. SURVEY DESIGN AND CATALOGS (2012, unknown): “…et al. 2006a; (48) Schady et al. 2007a; (49) Chen et al. 2006; (50) Melandri et al. 2006; (51) Page et al. 2007; (52) Sakamoto et al. 2007; (53) Troja et al. 2007; (54) Malesani et al. 2007; (55) Thoene et al. 2007a; (56) Jaunsen et al. 2008; (57) Chester et al. 2008; (58) Markwardt et al.…”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. I. Apparent Spectral Evolution of Gamma-Ray Burst X-Ray Tails (2006, background): “This component provides one possible reason to refresh the forward shock to sustain a shallow decay plateau in early X-ray afterglows (Zhang et al. 2006; Nousek et al. 2006), and it has been invoked to interpret the peculiar X-ray plateau afterglow of GRB 070110 (Troja et al. 2007).”
• EARLY X-RAY AND OPTICAL AFTERGLOW OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BURSTS FROM MERGERS OF BINARY NEUTRON STARS (2012, background): “Such a steady plateau with rapid decline would be a signature of a magnetar at the central engine (Zhang & Mészáros 2001; Troja et al. 2007).”
• THE ULTRA-LONG GAMMA-RAY BURST 111209A: THE COLLAPSE OF A BLUE SUPERGIANT? (2012, methodology): “Troja et al. (2007) has proposed a solution (later extended by Lyons et al. 2010) to this problem, with a two-stage progenitor: the collapsar would produce a magnetar that would collapse into a black hole a few hundreds of seconds later.”
• Mass fall-back and accretion in the central engine of gamma-ray bursts (2008, background): “A sudden drop in the flux – e.g. in the case of GRB 070110 the XLC was nearly flat for 20 ks and then fell off as t−8 (Troja et al. 2007) – is also not possible to understand other than as the result of highly variable central engine activity.”
• THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, methodology): “According to our interpretation, the duration of the internal plateaus is defined by the collapse time of a supra-massive neutron star (Troja et al. 2007; Zhang 2014).”
• A POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN FAST RADIO BURSTS AND GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2013, background): “This can happen both in massive star core collapses (Troja et al. 2007) and NS-NS mergers (Zhang 2013; Gao et al. 2013a; Yu et al. 2013).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. II. Diverse Physical Origins of the Shallow Decay Segment (2007, background): “A possible energy source for such a component would be the spin energy from the central engine, and an internal dissipation of the spindown power may be the origin (e.g. Troja et al. 2007).”
• A complete reference of the analytical synchrotron external shock models of gamma-ray bursts (2013, background): “It is likely that some X-ray plateaus followed by steep decays (internal plateaus) are also caused by late central engine activities (Troja et al., 2007; Liang et al., 2007; Lyons et al., 2010).”
• The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts (2014, background): “A similar interpretation is given to abrupt declines in the X-ray afterglows of long GRBs (Troja et al. 2007; Lyons et al. 2010).”
• The Proto-Magnetar Model for Gamma-Ray Bursts (2010, background): “Internal emission appears favored in at least some cases due to the very steep decay observed in the X-ray flux following the plateau (e.g. GRB 070110; Troja et al. 2007; Lyons et al. 2010, hereafter L10; Rowlinson et al. 2010).”
• The prompt-afterglow connection in gamma-ray bursts: a comprehensive statistical analysis of Swift X-ray light curves (2012, background): “…light-curve of many GRBs (e.g. GRB060729, Grupe et al. 2007); it cannot account for abrupt drops of emission observed in some GRBs (e.g. GRB070110, Troja et al. 2007, Lyons et al. 2010) and has serious difficulties explaining the X-ray flares (Chincarini et al. 2007, Falcone et al. 2007;…”
• The unusual X-ray emission of the short Swift GRB 090515: evidence for the formation of a magnetar? (2010, methodology): “Alongside the prediction by Troja et al. (2007) and Lyons et al. (2010) of a plateau followed by a steep decay for the light curve of a millisecond pulsar collapsing to a black hole, which matches the observed light curve for GRB 090515, this analysis provides a consistent case for GRB 090515…”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. III. Jet Break Candidates in X-Ray and Optical Afterglow Light Curves (2007, background): “Note that, as shown in Paper II, the sharp breaks in GRBs 060413, 060522, 060607A, and 070110 are possibly not of external origin (see also Troja et al. 2007).”