Naked forward shock seen in the TeV afterglow data of GRB221009A

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the early TeV afterglow of GRB221009A, revealing a naked forward shock and providing insights into jet activation, circumburst medium, and initial jet parameters.

Contribution

It determines the jet activation time from light curve offsets and constrains initial jet Lorentz factor and magnetic field strength, linking observations to jet physics.

Findings

Jet activation occurs ~200s after trigger.

Progenitor wind scenario fits the data well.

Initial flux increase explained by internal jet processes or gamma-gamma attenuation.

Abstract

We explore the implications of the light curve of the early TeV gamma-ray afterglow of GRB221009A reported by the LHAASO collaboration. We show that the reported offset of the reference time, $T_*$, allows the determination of the relativistic jet activation time, which occurs approximately $200\,\mathrm{s}$ after the GBM trigger time and closely precedes the moment at which GBM was saturated. We find that while the LHAASO data do not exclude the homogeneous circumburst medium scenario, the progenitor wind scenario looks preferable, finding excellent agreement with the expected size of the stellar bubble. We conclude that the initial growth of the light curve is dominated by processes internal to the jet or by gamma-gamma attenuation on the photons emitted during the prompt phase. Namely, either the activation of the acceleration process or the decrease of internal gamma-gamma absorption can naturally explain the initial rapid flux increase. The subsequent slow flux growth phase observed up to $T_*+18\,\mathrm{s}$ is explained by the build-up of the synchrotron radiation -- the target for inverse Compton scattering, which is also supported by a softer TeV spectrum measured during this period. The duration of this phase allows an almost parameter-independent determination of the jet's initial Lorentz factor, $\Gamma_0\approx600$, and magnetic field strength, $B'\sim0.3\,\mathrm{G}$. These values appear to match well those previously revealed through spectral modeling of the GRB emission.