Properties of magnetic turbulence in GRB afterglows

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model-independent method to analyze magnetic turbulence in GRB afterglows, revealing that turbulence is non-linear, likely caused by MHD instabilities, and affects synchrotron emission modeling.

Contribution

It provides a new framework for characterizing magnetic turbulence in GRB afterglows without relying on specific models, highlighting the role of MHD instabilities.

Findings

Gyroradius is smaller than magnetic fluctuation correlation length.

Turbulence is non-linear and likely driven by MHD instabilities.

One-zone models remain valid despite non-linear turbulence.

Abstract

We present a model-independent way to characterise properties of the magnetic-field turbulence in the emitting regions of Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows. Our only assumption is that afterglows' synchrotron radiation is efficient. It turns out that the gyroradius of plasma particles must be smaller (with a good margin) than the correlation length of the magnetic-field fluctuations. Such turbulence is essentially non-linear and therefore must be produced by some kind of MHD instability, likely acting on top of kinetic Weibel instability. We also find that the emitting particles are loosely confined to local magnetic-field structures and diffusion allows them to sample the entire distribution of local magnetization values. This means that one-zone approach to modelling the afterglow spectra is still valid despite the non-linear nature of the magnetic turbulence. However, the non-linear turbulence may (and likely will) change the synchrotron spectrum of individual electrons.