2007/08/10 by C. Guidorzi, S. D. Vergani, S. Sazonov +33 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Afterglow #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Context (archaeology) #Electron #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Nuclear physics #Optics #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Synchrotron #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20078254
published as Astron.Astrophys. 474 (2007) 793-805 · 14 pages, 11 figures, 4 tables, accepted to A&A
arxiv created 2007/08/10 · openalex publication_date 2007/08/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Context.The prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts is mostly thought to be produced in internal shocks of relativistic shells emitted by the progenitor at different times, whereas the late multi-band afterglow is interpreted as the synchrotron emission of electrons swept up by the fireball expanding through the surrounding interstellar medium. The short timescale variability observed in flares superimposed on the X-ray/optical afterglow of several bursts, recently made possible by Swift, has been interpreted as evidence for prolonged activity of the inner engine through internal shocks. Yet, it is not clear whether this applies to all the observed bursts and, in particular, whether the bursts exhibiting single γ-ray pulses with no short timescale variability at late times could also be entirely interpreted as external shocks.