G. A. MacLachlan
George Washington University
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 2013
G. A. MacLachlan; A. Shenoy; E. Sonbas; K. S. Dhuga; Bethany Elisa Cobb; T. N. Ukwatta; D. C. Morris; A. Eskandarian; Leonard C. Maximon; W. C. Parke
ABSTRACT We have investigated the variability of a sample of long and short Fermi/GBM Gammaray bursts (GRBs) using a fast wavelet technique to determine the smallest timescales. The results indicate different variability time scales for long and short burstsin the source frame and that variabilities on the order of a few milliseconds are notuncommon. The data also indicate an intriguing relation between the variability scaleand the burst duration.Key words: Gamma-ray bursts 1 INTRODUCTIONThe prompt emission from Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs)shows very complicated time profiles that hitherto elude asatisfactory explanation. Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz (2000)reported a correlation between variability of GRBs and thepeak isotropic luminosity. The existence of the variability-luminosity correlation suggests that the prompt emissionlight curve is embedded with temporal information relatedto the microphysics of GRBs. Several models have been pro-posed to explain the observed temporal variability of GRBlightcurves. Leading models such as the internal shock model(reference) and the photospheric model (reference) link therapid variability directly to the activity of the central en-gine. Others invoke relativistic outflow mechanisms to sug-gest that local turbulence amplified through Lorentz boost-ing leads to causally disconnected regions which in turnact as independent centers for the observed prompt emis-sion. In more recent models, both Morsony et al. (2010)and Zhang & Yan (2011) argue that the temporal variabil-ity may show two different scales depending on the physicalmechanisms generating the prompt emission.In order to further our understanding of the promptemission phase of GRBs and to explicitly test some of thekey ingredients in the various models it is clearly importantto extract the variability for both short and long gamma-ray bursts in a robust and unbiased manner. It is also clear
The Astrophysical Journal | 2013
A. Shenoy; E. Sonbas; C. D. Dermer; Leonard C. Maximon; K. S. Dhuga; P. N. Bhat; Jon Hakkila; W. C. Parke; G. A. MacLachlan; A. Eskandarian; T. N. Ukwatta
Curvature effects in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have long been a source of considerable interest. In a collimated relativistic GRB jet, photons that are off-axis relative to the observer arrive at later times than on-axis photons and are also expected to be spectrally softer. In this work, we invoke a relatively simple kinematic two-shell collision model for a uniform jet profile and compare its predictions to GRB prompt-emission data for observations that have been attributed to curvature effects such as the peak-flux-peak-frequency relation, i.e., the relation between the νF{sub ν} flux and the spectral peak, E{sub pk} in the decay phase of a GRB pulse, and spectral lags. In addition, we explore the behavior of pulse widths with energy. We present the case of the single-pulse Fermi GRB 110920 as a test for the predictions of the model against observations.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 2012
G. A. MacLachlan; A. Shenoy; E. Sonbas; K. S. Dhuga; A. Eskandarian; Leonard C. Maximon; W. C. Parke
We present a direct link between the minimum variability time-scales extracted through a wavelet decomposition and the rise times of the shortest pulses extracted via fits of 34 Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) light curves comprised of 379 pulses. Pulses used in this study were fitted with lognormal functions, whereas the wavelet technique used employs a multiresolution analysis that does not rely on identifying distinct pulses. By applying a corrective filter to published data fitted with pulses, we demonstrate agreement between these two independent techniques and offer a method for distinguishing signal from noise.
The Astrophysical Journal | 2015
E. Sonbas; G. A. MacLachlan; K. S. Dhuga; P. Veres; A. Shenoy; T. N. Ukwatta
For a sample of Swift and Fermi GRBs, we show that the minimum variability timescale and the spectral lag of the prompt emission is related to the bulk Lorentz factor in a complex manner: For small
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 2013
G. A. MacLachlan; A. Shenoy; E. Sonbas; Rob Coyne; K. S. Dhuga; A. Eskandarian; Leonard C. Maximon; W. C. Parke
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 2010
Tilan N. Ukwatta; K. S. Dhuga; D. C. Morris; G. A. MacLachlan; W. C. Parke; Leonard C. Maximon; A. Eskandarian; N. Gehrels; J. P. Norris; A. Shenoy
s, the variability timescale exhibits a shallow (plateau) region. For large
The Astrophysical Journal | 2013
E. Sonbas; G. A. MacLachlan; A. Shenoy; K. S. Dhuga; W. C. Parke
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Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | 2010
Tilan N. Ukwatta; K. S. Dhuga; D. C. Morris; G. A. MacLachlan; W. C. Parke; Leonard C. Maximon; A. Eskandarian; N. Gehrels; Jay P. Norris; A. Shenoy
s, the variability timescale declines steeply as a function of
Proceedings of Swift: 10 Years of Discovery — PoS(SWIFT 10) | 2015
E. Sonbas; G. A. MacLachlan; K. S. Dhuga; Peter Veres; A. Shenoy
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Proceedings of Gamma-Ray Bursts 2012 Conference — PoS(GRB 2012) | 2012
G. A. MacLachlan; A. Shenoy; E. Sonbas; K. S. Dhuga; W. C. Parke; Leonard C. Maximon
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