Off-axis jet scenario for early afterglow emission of low-luminosity gamma-ray burst GRB 190829A

TL;DR

This paper proposes an off-axis jet model to explain the early afterglow emission and VHE gamma-ray detection of GRB 190829A, accounting for its unusual energy and achromatic peaks.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed off-axis jet scenario with specific jet parameters to explain multi-wavelength observations of GRB 190829A, including VHE gamma-ray emission.

Findings

Off-axis viewing angle explains small isotropic energy and spectral peak.

A narrow, highly relativistic jet accounts for early afterglow features.

A wider jet explains later X-ray and radio emissions.

Abstract

Recently, ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes have reported the detection of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-rays from some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). One of them, GRB~190829A, was triggered by the Swift satellite, and about 20000 s after the burst onset the VHE gamma-ray emission was detected by H.E.S.S. with ~ 5 sigma significance. This event had unusual features of having much smaller isotropic equivalent gamma-ray energy than typical long GRBs and achromatic peaks in X-ray and optical afterglow at about 1400 s. Here we propose an off-axis jet scenario that explains these observational results. In this model, the relativistic beaming effect is responsible for the apparently small isotropic gamma-ray energy and spectral peak energy. Using a jetted afterglow model, we find that the narrow jet, which has the initial Lorentz factor of 350 and the initial jet opening half-angle of 0.015 rad, viewed off-axis can describe the observed achromatic behavior in the X-ray and optical afterglow. Another wide, baryon-loaded jet is necessary for the later-epoch X-ray and radio emissions. According to our model, the VHE gamma rays observed by H.E.S.S. at 20000 s may come from the narrow jet through the synchrotron self-Compton process.