Less noticeable shallow decay phase in early X-ray afterglows of GeV/TeV-detected gamma-ray bursts

TL;DR

This study investigates the early X-ray afterglow decay phases of gamma-ray bursts, finding that GeV/TeV-detected bursts often lack a noticeable shallow decay phase, contrasting with non-high-energy bursts, and discusses possible energy injection explanations.

Contribution

It provides the first comparative analysis of X-ray afterglow decay properties between high-energy gamma-ray detected GRBs and others, revealing less noticeable shallow decay in GeV/TeV events.

Findings

Many GeV/TeV GRBs lack a shallow decay phase in early X-ray afterglows.

GeV/TeV GRBs tend to have steeper decay slopes than non-high-energy bursts.

A possible energy injection mechanism is discussed to explain the observed decay behaviors.

Abstract

The nature of the shallow decay phase in the X-ray afterglow of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) is not yet clarified. We analyze the data of early X-ray afterglows of 26 GRBs triggered by Burst Alert Telescope onboard Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and subsequently detected by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and/or Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. It is found that 9 events (including 2 out of 3 very-high-energy gamma-ray events) have no shallow decay phase and that their X-ray afterglow light curves are well described by single power-law model except for the jet break at later epoch. The rest are fitted by double power-law model and have a break in the early epoch (around ks), however, 8 events (including a very-high-energy gamma-ray event) have the pre-break decay index larger than 0.7. We also analyze the data of well-sampled X-ray afterglows of GRBs without LAT detection, and compare their decay properties with those of high-energy and very-high-energy gamma-ray events. It is found that for the GeV/TeV bursts, the fraction of events whose X-ray afterglows are described by single power-law is significantly larger than those for non GeV/TeV GRBs. Even if the GeV/TeV GRBs have shallow decay phase, their decay slope tends to be steeper than non GeV/TeV bursts, that is, they have less noticeable shallow decay phase in the early X-ray afterglow. A possible interpretation along with the energy injection model is briefly discussed.