The prompt-afterglow connection in gamma-ray bursts: a comprehensive statistical analysis of Swift X-ray light curves

By Raffaella Margutti, E. Zaninoni, M. Bernardini, G. Chincarini, F. Pasotti, C. Guidorzi, L. Angelini, D. Burrows, M. Capalbi, P. Evans and 13 more. 2012

144 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a comprehensive statistical analysis of Swift X-ray light-curves of GammaRay Bursts (GRBs) collecting data from more than 650 GRBs discovered by Swift and other facilities. The unprecedented sample size allows us to constrain the rest-frame X-ray properties of GRBs from a statistical perspective, with particular reference to intrinsic time scales and the energetics of the different light-curve phases in a common rest-frame 0.3-30 keV energy band. Temporal variability episodes are also studied and their properties constrained. Two fundamental questions drive this effort: i) Does the X-ray emission retain any kind of “memory” of the prompt γ-ray phase? ii) Where is the dividing line between long and short GRB X-ray properties? We show that short GRBs decay faster, are less luminous and less energetic than long GRBs in the X-rays, but are interestingly characterized by similar intrinsic absorption. We furthermore reveal the existence of a number of statistically significant relations that link the X-ray to prompt γ-ray parameters in long GRBs; short GRBs are outliers of the majority of these 2-parameter relations. However and more importantly, we report on the existence of a universal 3-parameter scaling that links the X-ray and the γ-ray energy to the prompt spectral peak energy of both long and short GRBs: EX,iso ∝ E 1.00±0.06 γ,iso /E 0.60±0.10 pk .

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c20281e73a917f026764db786379a8c0d8b900bb

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Berger
3. Bing Zhang
4. W. Fong
5. E. Nakar
6. T. Piran
7. Raffaella Margutti
8. Ryan Chornock

Citations in the corpus

• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. V. Rising X-Ray Emission from an Off-axis Jet (2017, methodology): “As we show in detail in Fong et al. (2017a), Swift-XRT observations constrain the X-ray emission associated with the optical counterpart of LIGO/Virgo GW170817 to be significantly fainter than cosmological short GRBs at the same epoch (Margutti et al. 2013; D’Avanzo et al. 2014; Fong et al. 2015).”
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2013, background): “Indeed, the X-ray plateaus in long GRBs, spanning∼ 103 − 104 s, have been interpreted as evidence for significant energy injection (Nousek et al. 2006), but a smaller fraction of short GRBs exhibit such plateaus (Margutti et al. 2013).”
• THE OBSERVABLE SIGNATURES OF GRB COCOONS (2016, methodology): “To estimate the detectability of cocoon afterglows in soft X-rays we use the observed GRB afterglows after 1 day that typically have a luminosity of ∼ 1046 erg/s (Margutti et al. 2013).”
• A DECADE OF SHORT-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURST BROADBAND AFTERGLOWS: ENERGETICS, CIRCUMBURST DENSITIES, AND JET OPENING ANGLES (2015, methodology): “…light curves are often subject to steep decays, plateaus, or flares which may contaminate the afterglow emission (Nousek et al. 2006; Zhang et al. 2006; Margutti et al. 2011, 2013), we only utilize X-ray data atδt & 1000 s, when bursts have typically settled into the power-law afterglow phase.”
• PS16dtm: A Tidal Disruption Event in a Narrow-line Seyfert 1 Galaxy (2017, methodology): “19) and corresponding calibration files, and applied standard filtering and screening criteria (see Margutti et al. (2013) for details).”