Probing particle acceleration at trans-relativistic shocks with off-axis gamma-ray burst afterglows

Kazuya Takahashi; Kunihito Ioka; Yutaka Ohira; Hendrik Van Eerten

doi:10.1093/mnras/stac3022

Probing particle acceleration at trans-relativistic shocks with off-axis gamma-ray burst afterglows

Kazuya Takahashi, Kunihito Ioka, Yutaka Ohira, Hendrik Van Eerten

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4 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

Particle acceleration is expected to be different between relativistic and non-relativistic collisionless shocks. We show that electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves (GWs), gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows, are ideal targets for observing trans-relativistic evolution of accelerated electron distribution because the GWs spot nearby GRBs with off-axis jets, otherwise missed in gamma-ray observations. We find that the relativistic spectral slope begins to change steeply near the peak time of the light curve and approaches the non-relativistic limit in about 10 times the peak time. The trans-relativistic evolution of the afterglow synchrotron spectrum is consistent with GRB 170817A observations within errors, and will be measurable in similar but more distant events at a GW horizon ∼200 Mpc in a denser environment. We roughly estimate that such events represent a fraction of 10-50 per cent of the GRB 170817A-like off-axis short GRBs. We also find that the spectral evolution does not depend on the jet structure if their light curves are similar to each other.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	5541–5559
Number of pages	19
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	517
Issue number	4
Early online date	22 Oct 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac3022
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

No funders were acknowledged

Funding Information:
H. J. van Eerten acknowledges partial support by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under the AHEAD2020 project (grant agreement number 871158). This work is supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 17H06362 (KT, KI), 22H00130, 20H01904, 20H01901, 20H00158, 18H01215, 17H06357, 17H06131 (KI), and 19H01893, 21H04487 (YO).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.

Keywords

gamma-ray bursts
methods: analytical

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

Access to Document

10.1093/mnras/stac3022

https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06274Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Probing particle acceleration at trans-relativistic shocks with off-axis gamma-ray burst afterglows",

abstract = "Particle acceleration is expected to be different between relativistic and non-relativistic collisionless shocks. We show that electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves (GWs), gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows, are ideal targets for observing trans-relativistic evolution of accelerated electron distribution because the GWs spot nearby GRBs with off-axis jets, otherwise missed in gamma-ray observations. We find that the relativistic spectral slope begins to change steeply near the peak time of the light curve and approaches the non-relativistic limit in about 10 times the peak time. The trans-relativistic evolution of the afterglow synchrotron spectrum is consistent with GRB 170817A observations within errors, and will be measurable in similar but more distant events at a GW horizon ∼200 Mpc in a denser environment. We roughly estimate that such events represent a fraction of 10-50 per cent of the GRB 170817A-like off-axis short GRBs. We also find that the spectral evolution does not depend on the jet structure if their light curves are similar to each other.",

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note = "No funders were acknowledged Funding Information: H. J. van Eerten acknowledges partial support by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under the AHEAD2020 project (grant agreement number 871158). This work is supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 17H06362 (KT, KI), 22H00130, 20H01904, 20H01901, 20H00158, 18H01215, 17H06357, 17H06131 (KI), and 19H01893, 21H04487 (YO). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.",

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N1 - No funders were acknowledged Funding Information: H. J. van Eerten acknowledges partial support by the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under the AHEAD2020 project (grant agreement number 871158). This work is supported by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 17H06362 (KT, KI), 22H00130, 20H01904, 20H01901, 20H00158, 18H01215, 17H06357, 17H06131 (KI), and 19H01893, 21H04487 (YO). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.

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Probing particle acceleration at trans-relativistic shocks with off-axis gamma-ray burst afterglows

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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