2004/01/29 by P. Jakobsson, J. Hjorth, E. Ramírez-Ruiz +19 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.newast.2004.01.007
published as New Astron. 9 (2004) 435-442 · 11 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in New Astronomy
arxiv created 2004/01/29 · openalex publication_date 2004/02/21 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We report the discovery of the afterglow of the X-ray rich, long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 011211 and present evidence for oscillatory behaviour in its early optical light curve. The time-scale of the fluctuations, ~1 hour, is much smaller than the time of the observations, ~12 hours from the onset of the gamma-ray burst. The character and strength of the fluctuations are unprecedented and are inconsistent with causally connected variations in the emission of a symmetric, relativistic blast wave, i.e. flux variations which are produced uniformly throughout the shell surface are ruled out. Therefore, the wiggles are the result of spherically asymmetric density or energy variations. Additionally, there is evidence for fluctuations in the X-ray afterglow light curve. If real, the resulting difference in the observed time of the peaks of the short-term variations at X-ray and optical frequencies, would demonstrate that the energy content across the jet-emitting surface is not uniform.