Evidence for Circumburst Extinction of Gamma-Ray Bursts with Dark Optical Afterglows and Evidence for a Molecular Cloud Origin of Gamma-Ray Bursts
- Creators
- Reichart, Daniel E.
- Price, Paul A.
- Others:
- Ricker, G. R.
- Vanderspek, R. K.
Abstract
First, we show that the gamma-ray bursts with dark optical afterglows (DOAs) cannot be explained by a failure to image deeply enough quickly enough, and argue that circumburst extinction is the most likely solution. If so, many DOAs will be "revived" with rapid follow up and NIR searches in the HETE-2 and Swift eras. Next, we consider the effects of dust sublimation and fragmentation, and show that DOAs occur in clouds of size R ≳ 10L^(1/2)_49 pc and mass M ≳ 3x10^5L_(49) M_⊙, where L is the luminosity of the optical flash. Stability considerations show that such clouds cannot be diffuse, but must be molecular. Consequently, we compute the expected column density distribution of bursts that occur in Galactic-like molecular clouds, and show that the column density measurements from X-ray spectra of afterglows, DOAs and otherwise, satisfy this expectation in the source frame.
Additional Information
© 2003 American Institute of Physics. Issue Date: 14 April 2003.Attached Files
Published - REIaipcp03.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 27408
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20111025-111914069
- Created
-
2011-10-26Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Series Name
- AIP Conference Proceedings
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 662