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GRB990510: on the possibility of a beamed X-ray afterglow

E. Kuulkers, L. A. Antonelli, L. Kuiper, J. S. Kaastra, L. Amati, E. Costa, F. Frontera, J. Heise, J. J. M. in 't Zand, N. Masetti, L. Nicastro, E. Pian, L. Piro, P. Soffita

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/0003258

Abstract

We discuss the prompt emission of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 990510 and its subsequent X-ray afterglow from 8.0 to 44.3 hrs after the prompt emission, using observations with the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor and Narrow Field Instruments on BeppoSAX. In the 40-700 keV band, GRB990510 had a fluence of \~1.9x10-5erg cm-2, whereas it reached a peak flux of ~2.4x10-6erg cm-2 s-1. The X-ray afterglow decay light curve can be satisfactorily described by a single power law with index of -1.42+/-0.07. Both the X-ray and optical behaviour of the afterglow can be explained by gamma-ray burst debris expanding as a jet; we find that the cooling frequency is (fixed) between the optical and X-ray wavelength bands.

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