Forward and Reverse Shock Emission from Relativistic Jets with Arbitrary Angular and Stratified Radial Profiles

TL;DR

This paper extends a numerical model to include stratified radial profiles in relativistic jets, revealing significant differences in reverse shock emission predictions and enabling better modeling of complex jet structures and afterglows.

Contribution

We developed an extended numerical code for jets with arbitrary angular and stratified radial profiles, improving reverse shock emission modeling and applicability to various jet structures.

Findings

Reverse shock emission in thin shells is overestimated by analytic models.

Off-axis observers may see a thin-to-thick shell transition.

Radial profiles introduce hydrodynamic energy injection, affecting afterglow light curves.

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts are expected to be generated by structured jets, whose profiles significantly impact their afterglow emission. Previously, we developed a numerical code jetsimpy, to model the afterglow of jets with arbitrary angular profiles. In this study, we extend the code to incorporate a stratified radial profile, enabling it to model jets with arbitrary axisymmetric two-dimensional structures. The radial profile leads to the formation of a reverse shock. We modeled the shock system using an energy conservation prescription, which differs from the pressure balance approach. This leads to remarkably different predictions for reverse shock emission. In particular, we find that the reverse shock emission in the thin shell case is significantly overestimated in analytic models. We also explore the off-axis reverse shock emission from structured jets, where the cores belong to thick shell cases and the wings belong to thin shell cases. We have confirmed the prediction that off-axis observers may see a thin-to-thick transition, but we find that the light curve morphology is hard to distinguish from pure thin or thick shell cases. A radial profile also introduces hydrodynamic energy injection. As such, our code can naturally apply to refreshed shock cases, where the modeling of kilonova afterglows is demonstrated as an example. To validate our method, we fit the optical flash of GRB 990123, showing good agreement with the data. The upgraded jetsimpy provides unprecedented flexibility in modeling the afterglow emission of jets with various profiles, including those derived from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations.