Gamma-Ray Burst Energetics and the Gamma-Ray Burst Hubble Diagram: Promises and Limitations

By Joshua S. Bloom, D. Frail, Shrinivas R. Kulkarni. 2003

311 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a complete sample of 29 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) for which it has been possible to determine temporal breaks (or limits) from their afterglow light curves. We interpret these breaks within the framework of the uniform conical jet model, incorporating realistic estimates of the ambient density and propagating error estimates on the measured quantities. In agreement with our previous analysis of a smaller sample, the derived jet opening angles of those 16 bursts with redshifts result in a narrow clustering of geometrically corrected gamma-ray energies about ℰγ = 1.33 × 1051 ergs; the burst-to-burst variance about this value is 0.35 dex, a factor of 2.2. Despite this rather small scatter, we demonstrate in a series of GRB Hubble diagrams that the current sample cannot place meaningful constraints upon the fundamental parameters of the universe. Indeed, for GRBs to ever be useful in cosmographic measurements, we argue the necessity of two directions. First, GRB Hubble diagrams should be based upon fundamental physical quantities such as energy, rather than empirically derived and physically ill-understood distance indicators (such as those based upon prompt burst time-profiles and spectra). Second, a more homogeneous set should be constructed by culling subclasses from the larger sample. These subclasses, although now first recognizable by deviant energies, ultimately must be identifiable by properties other than those directly related to energy. We identify a new subclass of GRBs ("f-GRBs") that appear both underluminous by factors of at least 10 and exhibit a rapid fading (fν ∝ t-2) at early times (t ≲ 0.5 day). About 10%-20% of observed long-duration bursts appear to be f-GRBs.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/960f62caa1fafe06d14b7cf311840c5065cb7f38

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

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

Citations in the corpus

• AFTERGLOW OBSERVATIONS OF FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY BURSTS AND THE EMERGING CLASS OF HYPER-ENERGETIC EVENTS (2010, background): “Such measurements, made nearly a decade ago, pointed to a total relativistic energy yield (Erel ≈ Eγ + EKE) of ∼ 1051 erg (Frail et al. 2001; Panaitescu & Kumar 2001a; Freedman & Waxman 2001; Bloom et al. 2003; Berger et al. 2003a).”
• The Luminosity and Angular Distributions of Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2003, methodology): “To this aim we have rederived (following Schmidt, 1999) the luminosity function, Φ(L) by fitting the peak flux distribution and used the relation L×θ2 ∼ const implied by the observation on the sample considered by Bloom et al. (2003).”
• Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era (2007, background): “Starting with the assumption of constant energy reservoir of all events (as derived by Frail et al. 2001; Bloom et al. 2003 - but not confirmed by more systematic observations by Swift, e.g., Willingale et al. 2006; Burrows 2006; Zhang 2007), they drew the conclusion that GRBs have a typical opening”
• The Hubble Diagram to Redshift >6 from 69 Gamma-Ray Bursts (2006, methodology): “Half a year later, another GRBHD appearedwith 16 bursts based on the independent result that the gamma-ray energy of the bursts is a constant after correction for the beaming angle (Bloom et al. 2003a).”
• The Supernova Gamma-Ray Burst Connection (2006, background): “Assuming isotropic emission, the energy in gammarays was Eγ = 8.5± 0.1× 1047 erg, more than 3 orders of magnitude fainter than the majority of long-duration GRBs (Frail et al., 2001; Bloom et al., 2003).”
• A DECADE OF SHORT-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURST BROADBAND AFTERGLOWS: ENERGETICS, CIRCUMBURST DENSITIES, AND JET OPENING ANGLES (2015, methodology): “…al. 2008; Nysewander et al. 2009; Laskar et al. 2014), circumburst densities of≈ 0.1 − 100 cm−3 (Panaitescu & Kumar 2002; Yost et al. 2003), and opening angles of≈ 2 − 20◦ (Bloom et al. 2003; Frail et al. 2001; Friedman & Bloom 2005; Kocevski & Butler 2008; Racusin et al. 2009; Ryan et al. 2015).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. III. Jet Break Candidates in X-Ray and Optical Afterglow Light Curves (2007, methodology): “Assuming that these are real jet breaks, we revisit the GRB jet energy budget (Frail et al. 2001; Bloom et al. 2003; Berger et al. 2003) with conventional jet models (x 5).”
• Testing the Standard Fireball Model of Gamma-Ray Bursts Using Late X-Ray Afterglows Measured by Swift (2006, methodology): “Also shown are the values derived for pre-Swift GRBs using the tabulations in Frail et al. (2001), Bloom et al. (2003) and Ghirlanda et al. (2004).”
• A NEW POPULATION OF ULTRA-LONG DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2013, background): “The resulting beaming corrected energies are Eγ > 1.2 × 1051 erg (111209A) and Eγ > 1.0 × 1051 erg (121027), again entirely in keeping with the energy output of many long duration GRBs (e.g Frail et al. 2001; Berger et al. 2003; Bloom et al. 2003; Racusin et al. 2009).”
• JET BREAKS AND ENERGETICS OF Swift GAMMA-RAY BURST X-RAY AFTERGLOWS (2008, methodology): “Compared to pre-Swift optical jet break measurements which tightly cluster around Eγ ∼ 10 51 ergs (Bloom et al. 2003), our sample is less energetic, with a median value for the long bursts with estimated Eγ,iso in Prominent jet break sample of ∼ 9.8 × 1049 ergs.”
• REM observations of GRB 060418 and GRB 060607A: the onset of the afterglow and the initial fireball Lorentz factor determination (2006, methodology): “Substituting the measured quantities and normalising to the typical valuesn = 1 cm−3 andη = 0.2 (Bloom et al. 2003), we infer for both burstsΓ0 ≈ 400 (η0.”