The Rapid Decay of the Optical Emission from GRB 980326 and its Possible Implications

Preprint

4 June 1998

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/9806070

Abstract

We report the discovery of the optical counterpart to GRB 980326. Its rapid optical decay can be characterized by a power law with exponent -2.10 +/- 0.13 and a constant underlying source at R_c=25.5 +/- 0.5. Its optical colours 2.1 days after the burst imply a spectral slope of -0.66 +/- 0.70. The gamma-ray spectrum as observed with BATSE shows that it is among the 4% softest bursts ever recorded. We argue that the rapid optical decay may be a reason for the non-detection of some low-energy afterglows of GRBs.

Keywords

RAPID OPTICAL DECAY
ENERGY AFTERGLOWS
OPTICAL EMISSION
RAPID DECAY
LOW ENERGY
GRB

All Related Versions

Version 1, 1998-06-04, ArXiv
Published version: The Astrophysical Journal, 502 (2), L123.

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