Issue |
A&A
Volume 367, Number 2, February IV 2001
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 501 - 505 | |
Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20010062 | |
Published online | 15 February 2001 |
Could the unusual optical afterglow of GRB 000301c arise from a non-relativistic shock with energy injection?
Department of Astronomy, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China
Corresponding author: T. Lu, tlu@nju.edu.cn
Received:
22
June
2000
Accepted:
13
November
2000
Recent observations on the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 000301c afterglow show that
one sharp break appears in the global optical/IR light curves, and in particular
the decay slope at late times is as steep as about -3.0. This unusual feature is
clearly inconsistent with the standard afterglow shock model. Here we propose
a non-standard model for the afterglow of GRB 000301c, in which
an initial ultra-relativistic shock in a dense medium ("dirty environment")
rapidly evolved to the non-relativistic phase in 1 day after the burst. During
such a phase, the shock was refreshed by a strongly magnetized millisecond
pulsar through magnetic dipole radiation. This refreshment led to flattening
of the light curves. After the energy injection, the afterglow decayed as
if the electron distribution index of the shocked medium,
, derived from the optical spectrum. Therefore, our model
can provide a plausible explanation for the peculiar optical/IR afterglow
light curves of GRB 000301c.
Key words: gamma-rays: bursts / shock waves
© ESO, 2001
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