A Study of the Spectral properties of Gamma-Ray Bursts with the Precursors and Main bursts

TL;DR

This study analyzes the spectral properties of gamma-ray burst precursors and main bursts, revealing similarities in their thermal components, spectral evolution, and correlations, suggesting a shared physical origin.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic spectral analysis of 21 Fermi GRBs with precursors and main bursts, highlighting their spectral and physical similarities.

Findings

Most precursors and main bursts show thermal spectral components.

Spectral parameters like $ ext{alpha}$ and $E_p$ evolve similarly in about half of the cases.

All analyzed bursts follow the Amati and Yonetoku relations, indicating common physical origins.

Abstract

There is no consensus yet on whether the precursor and the main burst of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have the same origin, and their jet composition is still unclear. In order to further investigate this issue, we systematically search 21 Fermi GRBs with both precursor and main burst for spectral analysis. We first perform Bayesian time-resolved spectral analysis and find that almost all the precursors and the main bursts (94.4$\%$) exhibit thermal components, and the vast majority of them have low-energy spectral index ($\alpha$) (72.2$\%$) that exceed the limit of synchrotron radiation. We then analyse the evolution and correlation of the spectral parameters and find that approximately half of the $\alpha$ (50$\%$) of the precursors and the main bursts evolve in a similar pattern, while peak energy ($E_{p}$) (55.6$\%$) behave similarly, and their evolution is mainly characterized by flux tracking; for the $\alpha-F$ (the flux) relation, more than half of the precursors and the main bursts (61.1$\%$) exhibit roughly similar patterns; the $E_{p}-F$ relation in both the precursor and main burst (100$\%$) exhibits a positive correlation of at least moderate strength. Next, we constrain the outflow properties of the precursors and the main bursts and find that most of them exhibit typical properties of photosphere radiation. Finally, we compare the time-integrated spectra of the precursors and the main bursts and find that nearly all of them are located in similar regions of the Amati relation and follow the Yonetoku relation. Therefore, we conclude that main bursts are continuations of precursors and they may share a common physical origin.