2009/08/31 by Wei-Hong Gao, Jirong Mao, J. Mao +3 · 66 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Afterglow #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Electron #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Nuclear physics #Optics #Photon #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Radiation #Shock (circulatory) #Synchrotron #Synchrotron radiation #astro-ph.HE
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/706/1/l33
published in The Astrophysical Journal 706(1), L33-L36 (IOP Publishing) · 5 pages; accepted for publication in ApJL
openalex publication_date 2009/10/28 · arxiv created 2009/10/29 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We constrain the physical composition of the outflows of GRBs 080916C and 090510 with the prompt emission data and find that the former is likely magnetic, while the latter may be baryonic. The X-ray and optical afterglow emission of both GRBs can be reasonably fitted using the standard external shock model but the density profiles of the circum-burst medium are different. We also propose a simple method to estimate the number of seed photons supposing the GeV afterglow photons are due to the inverse Compton radiation of external forward shock electrons. The seed photons needed in the modeling are too many to be realistic for both events. The synchrotron radiation of the forward shock seems able to account for the GeV afterglow data.