TY  - JOUR
A1  - Warren, Donald C.
A1  - Ellison, Donald C.
A1  - Barkov, Maxim V.
A1  - Nagataki, Shigehiro
T1  - Nonlinear Particle Acceleration and Thermal Particles in GRB Afterglows
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics
N2  - The standard model for GRB afterglow emission treats the accelerated electron population as a simple power law, N(E) proportional to E-p for p greater than or similar to 2. However, in standard Fermi shock acceleration, a substantial fraction of the swept-up particles do not enter the acceleration process at all. Additionally, if acceleration is efficient, then the nonlinear back-reaction of accelerated particles on the shock structure modifies the shape of the nonthermal tail of the particle spectra. Both of these modifications to the standard synchrotron afterglow impact the luminosity, spectra, and temporal variation of the afterglow. To examine the effects of including thermal particles and nonlinear particle acceleration on afterglow emission, we follow a hydrodynamical model for an afterglow jet and simulate acceleration at numerous points during the evolution. When thermal particles are included, we find that the electron population is at no time well fitted by a single power law, though the highest-energy electrons are; if the acceleration is efficient, then the power-law region is even smaller. Our model predicts hard-soft-hard spectral evolution at X-ray energies, as well as an uncoupled X-ray and optical light curve. Additionally, we show that including emission from thermal particles has drastic effects (increases by factors of 100 and 30, respectively) on the observed flux at optical and GeV energies. This enhancement of GeV emission makes afterglow detections by future gamma-ray observatories, such as CTA, very likely.
KW  - acceleration of particles
KW  - cosmic rays
KW  - gamma-ray burst: general
KW  - shock waves
KW  - turbulence
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa56c3
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
VL  - 835
IS  - 2
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Selsing, Jonatan
A1  - Malesani, D.
A1  - Goldoni, P.
A1  - Fynbo, Johan
A1  - Krühler, T.
A1  - Antonelli, L. A.
A1  - Arabsalmani, M.
A1  - Bolmer, J.
A1  - Cano, Z.
A1  - Christensen, L.
A1  - Covino, S.
A1  - De Cia, A.
A1  - de Ugarte Postigo, A.
A1  - Flores, H.
A1  - Fliis, M.
A1  - Gomboc, A.
A1  - Greiner, J.
A1  - Groot, P.
A1  - Hammer, F.
A1  - Hartoog, O. E.
A1  - Heintz, K. E.
A1  - Hjorth, J.
A1  - Jakobsson, P.
A1  - Japelj, J.
A1  - Kann, D. A.
A1  - Kaper, L.
A1  - Ledoux, C.
A1  - Leloudas, G.
A1  - Levan, A. J.
A1  - Maiorano, E.
A1  - Melandri, A.
A1  - Milvang-Jensen, B.
A1  - Palazzi, E.
A1  - Palmerio, J. T.
A1  - Perley, D. A.
A1  - Pian, E.
A1  - Piranomonte, S.
A1  - Pugliese, G.
A1  - Sanchez-Ramirez, R.
A1  - Savaglio, S.
A1  - Schady, P.
A1  - Schulze, S.
A1  - Sollerman, J.
A1  - Sparre, Martin
A1  - Tagliaferri, G.
A1  - Tanvir, N. R.
A1  - Thone, C. C.
A1  - Vergani, S. D.
A1  - Vreeswijk, P.
A1  - Watson, D.
A1  - Wiersema, K.
A1  - Wijers, R.
A1  - Xu, D.
A1  - Zafar, T.
T1  - The X-shooter GRB afterglow legacy sample (XS-GRB)
JF  - Astronomy and astrophysics : an international weekly journal
N2  - In this work we present spectra of all gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows that have been promptly observed with the X-shooter spectrograph until 31/03/2017. In total, we have obtained spectroscopic observations of 103 individual GRBs observed within 48 hours of the GRB trigger. Redshifts have been measured for 97 per cent of these, covering a redshift range from 0.059 to 7.84. Based on a set of observational selection criteria that minimise biases with regards to intrinsic properties of the GRBs, the follow-up effort has been focused on producing a homogeneously selected sample of 93 afterglow spectra for GRBs discovered by the Swift satellite. We here provide a public release of all the reduced spectra, including continuum estimates and telluric absorption corrections. For completeness, we also provide reductions for the 18 late-time observations of the underlying host galaxies. We provide an assessment of the degree of completeness with respect to the parent GRB population, in terms of the X-ray properties of the bursts in the sample and find that the sample presented here is representative of the full Swift sample. We have constrained the fraction of dark bursts to be <28 per cent and confirm previous results that higher optical darkness is correlated with increased X-ray absorption. For the 42 bursts for which it is possible, we have provided a measurement of the neutral hydrogen column density, increasing the total number of published HI column density measurements by similar to 33 per cent. This dataset provides a unique resource to study the ISM across cosmic time, from the local progenitor surroundings to the intervening Universe.
KW  - gamma-ray burst: general
KW  - galaxies: high-redshift
KW  - ISM: general
KW  - techniques: spectroscopic
KW  - catalogs
KW  - galaxies: star formation
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201832835
SN  - 1432-0746
SN  - 0004-6361
VL  - 623
PB  - EDP Sciences
CY  - Les Ulis
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Abeysekara, A. U.
A1  - Archer, A.
A1  - Benbow, Wystan
A1  - Bird, Ralph
A1  - Brose, Robert
A1  - Buchovecky, M.
A1  - Bugaev, V.
A1  - Connolly, M. P.
A1  - Cui, Wei
A1  - Errando, Manel
A1  - Falcone, A.
A1  - Feng, Qi
A1  - Finley, John P.
A1  - Flinders, A.
A1  - Fortson, L.
A1  - Furniss, Amy
A1  - Gillanders, Gerard H.
A1  - Huetten, M.
A1  - Hanna, David
A1  - Hervet, O.
A1  - Holder, J.
A1  - Hughes, G.
A1  - Humensky, T. B.
A1  - Johnson, Caitlin A.
A1  - Kaaret, Philip
A1  - Kar, P.
A1  - Kelley-Hoskins, N.
A1  - Kertzman, M.
A1  - Kieda, David
A1  - Krause, Maria
A1  - Krennrich, F.
A1  - Lang, M. J.
A1  - Lin, T. T. Y.
A1  - Maier, Gernot
A1  - McArthur, S.
A1  - Moriarty, P.
A1  - Mukherjee, Reshmi
A1  - Ong, R. A.
A1  - Park, N.
A1  - Perkins, Jeremy S.
A1  - Petrashyk, A.
A1  - Pohl, Martin
A1  - Popkow, Alexis
A1  - Pueschel, Elisa
A1  - Quinn, J.
A1  - Ragan, K.
A1  - Reynolds, P. T.
A1  - Richards, Gregory T.
A1  - Roache, E.
A1  - Rulten, C.
A1  - Sadeh, I.
A1  - Santander, M.
A1  - Sembroski, G. H.
A1  - Shahinyan, Karlen
A1  - Tyler, J.
A1  - Wakely, S. P.
A1  - Weiner, O. M.
A1  - Weinstein, A.
A1  - Wells, R. M.
A1  - Wilcox, P.
A1  - Wilhelm, Alina
A1  - Williams, David A.
A1  - Zitzer, B.
A1  - Vurm, Indrek
A1  - Beloborodov, Andrei
T1  - A Strong Limit on the Very-high-energy Emission from GRB 150323A
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics
N2  - On 2015 March 23, the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS) responded to a Swift-Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) detection of a gamma-ray burst, with observations beginning 270 s after the onset of BAT emission, and only 135 s after the main BAT emission peak. No statistically significant signal is detected above 140 GeV. The VERITAS upper limit on the fluence in a 40-minute integration corresponds to about 1% of the prompt fluence. Our limit is particularly significant because the very-high-energy (VHE) observation started only similar to 2 minutes after the prompt emission peaked, and Fermi-Large Area Telescope observations of numerous other bursts have revealed that the high-energy emission is typically delayed relative to the prompt radiation and lasts significantly longer. Also, the proximity of GRB 150323A (z = 0.593) limits the attenuation by the extragalactic background light to similar to 50% at 100-200 GeV. We conclude that GRB 150323A had an intrinsically very weak high-energy afterglow, or that the GeV spectrum had a turnover below similar to 100 GeV. If the GRB exploded into the stellar wind of a massive progenitor, the VHE non-detection constrains the wind density parameter to be A greater than or similar to 3 x 10(11) g . cm(-1), consistent with a standard Wolf-Rayet progenitor. Alternatively, the VHE emission from the blast wave would be weak in a very tenuous medium such as the interstellar medium, which therefore cannot be ruled out as the environment of GRB 150323A.
KW  - gamma rays: general
KW  - gamma-ray burst: general
KW  - gamma-ray burst: individual (GRB 150323A)
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aab371
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
VL  - 857
IS  - 1
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  -