Hard Electron Energy Distribution in the Relativistic Shocks of GRB Afterglows

Abstract

Particle acceleration in relativistic shocks is not a very well understood subject. Owing to that difficulty, radiation spectra from relativistic shocks, such as those in GRB afterglows, have been often modelled by making assumptions about the underlying electron distribution. One such assumption is a relatively soft distribution of the particle energy, which need not be true always, as is obvious from observations of several GRB afterglows. In this paper, we describe modifications to the afterglow standard model to accommodate energy spectra which are `hard'. We calculate the overall evolution of the synchrotron and compton flux arising from such a distribution. We also model two afterglows, GRB010222 and GRB020813, under this assumption and estimate the physical parameters.

17 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift/XRT Data: III. Jet Break Candidates in X-ray and Optical Afterglow Lightcurves
• Blazar Gamma-Rays, Shock Acceleration, and the Extragalactic Background Light
• The Afterglow of GRB010222: A Case of Continuous Energy Injection
• Analytical Study of Diffusive Relativistic Shock Acceleration
• Evolution of an afterglow with a hard electron spectrum

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Challenging GRB models through the broadband dataset of GRB060908
• Multi-wavelength study of the luminous GRB 210619B observed with Fermi and ASIM
• Synchrotron self-Compton Reverse Shock in Energy-Injection and Radiative Scenarios