GRB 051210: Swift detection of a short gamma ray burst

Free access article

Issue		A&A Volume 454, Number 3, August II 2006


Page(s)		753 - 757
Section		Extragalactic astronomy
DOI		http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20065083

A&A 454, 753-757 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20065083

GRB 051210: Swift detection of a short gamma ray burst

V. La Parola¹, V. Mangano¹, D. Fox², B. Zhang³, H. A. Krimm^{4, 5}, G. Cusumano¹, T. Mineo¹, D. N. Burrows², S. Barthelmy⁴, S. Campana⁶, M. Capalbi⁷, G. Chincarini^{6, 8}, N. Gehrels⁴, P. Giommi⁷, F. E. Marshall⁴, P. Mészáros^{2, 9}, A. Moretti⁶, P. T. O'Brien¹⁰, D. M. Palmer¹¹, M. Perri⁷, P. Romano⁶ and G. Tagliaferri⁵

¹ INAF - Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Palermo, Italy
e-mail: laparola@ifc.inaf.it
² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, USA
³ Department of Physics, University of Nevada, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4002, USA
⁴ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
⁵ Universities Space Research Association 10211 Wincopin Circle, Suite 500 Columbia, Maryland 21044, USA
⁶ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, via Bianchi 46, 23807 Merate, Italy
⁷ ASI Science Data Center, via Galileo Galilei, 00044 Frascati, Italy
⁸ Università degli studi di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Fisica, Piazza delle Scienze 3, 20126 Milan, Italy
⁹ Department of Physics, Pennsylvania State University, PA 16802, USA
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
¹¹ Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS B244, NM 87545, USA

(Received 24 February 2006 / Accepted 21 April 2006 )

Abstract
Aims.The short/hard GRB 051210 was detected and located by the Swift-BAT instrument and rapidly pointed towards by the narrow field instruments. The XRT was able to observe a bright, rapidly fading X-ray emission. We present the analysis of the prompt and afterglow emission of this event.
Methods.The BAT spectrum is a power-law with photon index $1.0\pm0.3$ . The X-ray light curve decays with slope $-2.58\pm0.11$ and shows a small flare in the early phases. The spectrum can be described with a power law with photon index $1.54\pm0.16$ and absorption $(7.5_{-3.2}^{+4.3})\times10^{20}$ cm^-2.
Results.We find that the X-ray emission is consistent with the hypothesis that we are observing the curvature effect of a GRB that occurred in a low density medium, with no detectable afterglow attributable to an external shock. We estimate the density of the circumburst medium to be lower than $3\times10^{-3}$ cm^-3. We also discuss different hypothesis on the possible origin of the flare.

Key words: gamma rays: bursts -- X-rays: bursts

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