Gamma-ray burst afterglow scaling coefficients for general density profiles
- ↵*E-mail: H.J.vanEerten{at}uva.nl (HJvE); R.A.M.J.Wijers{at}uva.nl (RAMJW)
- In original form 2008 October 13.
- Received 2009 January 9.
- Accepted 2009 January 9.
- First published online April 21, 2009.
Abstract
Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are well described by synchrotron emission originating from the interaction between a relativistic blast wave and the external medium surrounding the GRB progenitor. We introduce a code to reconstruct spectra and light curves from arbitrary fluid configurations, making it especially suited to study the effects of fluid flows beyond those that can be described using analytical approximations. As a check and first application of our code, we use it to fit the scaling coefficients of theoretical models of afterglow spectra. We extend earlier results of other authors to general circumburst density profiles. We rederive the physical parameters of GRB 970508 and compare with other authors.
Key words
- © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 RAS
