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Issue A&A
Volume 379, Number 3, December I 2001
Page(s) L39 - L43
Section Letters
DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011485

A&A 379, L39-L43 (2001)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20011485

Possible detection of hard X-ray afterglows of short $\gamma$-ray bursts

D. Lazzati1, E. Ramirez-Ruiz1 and G. Ghisellini2

1  Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, CB3 0HA Cambridge, UK
    e-mail: enrico@ast.cam.ac.uk
2  Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate, Italy
    e-mail: gabriele@merate.mi.astro.it

(Received 31 August 2001 / Accepted 10 October 2001 )

Abstract
We report the discovery of a transient and fading hard X-ray emission in the BATSE lightcurves of a sample of short $\gamma$-ray bursts. We have summed each of the four channel BATSE light curves of 76 short bursts to uncover the average overall temporal and spectral evolution of a possible transient signal following the prompt flux. We found an excess emission peaking ~30 s after the prompt one, detectable for $\approx$ 100 s. The soft power-law spectrum and the time-evolution of this transient signal suggest that it is produced by the deceleration of a relativistic expanding source, as predicted by the afterglow model.


Key words: gamma rays: bursts -- radiation mechanisms: non-thermal

Offprint request: D. Lazzati, lazzati@ast.cam.ac.uk

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© ESO 2001


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