Thermal Radiation from GRB Jets

TL;DR

This paper models the thermal radiation from ultrarelativistic GRB jets using 2D hydrodynamic simulations, revealing how jet structure affects observable spectra and luminosity, and comparing results with real GRB data.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based analysis of photospheric thermal emission from GRB jets, linking jet dynamics to observable spectral features.

Findings

Photospheric shape is concave for on-axis observers.

Thermal flux levels match observed GRB components.

Spectrum below peak energy follows a power law with index 2.3-2.6.

Abstract

In this study, the light curves and spectrum of the photospheric thermal radiation from ultrarelativistic gamma-ray burst (GRB) jets are calculated using 2D relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of jets from a collapsar. As the jet advances, the density around the head of the jet decreases, and its Lorentz factor reaches as high as 200 at the photosphere and 400 inside the photosphere. For an on-axis observer, the photosphere appears concave shaped due to the low density and high beaming factor of the jet. The luminosity varies because of the abrupt change in the position of the photosphere due to the internal structure of the jet. Comparing our results with GRB090902B, the flux level of the thermal-like component is similar to our model, although the peak energy looks a little bit higher (but still within a factor of 2). From the comparison, we estimate that the bulk Lorentz factor of GRB090902B is $\Gamma \sim 2.4 \times 10^2 (r/10^{12} \rm cm$) where $r$ is the radius of the photosphere. The spectrum for an on-axis observer is harder than that for an off-axis observer. There is a time lag of a few seconds for high energy bands in the light curve. This may be the reason for the delayed onset of GeV emission seen in GRB080916C. The spectrum below the peak energy is a power law and the index is $2.3 \sim 2.6$ which is softer than that of single temperature plank distribution but still harder than that of typical value of observed one.