Shear Particle Acceleration in Structured Gamma-Ray Burst Jets. II. Viewing Angle Effect on the Prompt Emission and Application to GRB 170817A

Multimessenger observations suggest that the gamma-ray burst on 2017 August 17 (GRB 170817A) resulted from off-axial observations of its structured jet, which consists of a narrow ultrarelativistic jet core surrounded by a wide mild-relativistic cocoon. In a serious paper, we explore the emission of...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zi-Qi Wang, Xiao-Li Huang, En-Wei Liang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/adb722
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Summary:Multimessenger observations suggest that the gamma-ray burst on 2017 August 17 (GRB 170817A) resulted from off-axial observations of its structured jet, which consists of a narrow ultrarelativistic jet core surrounded by a wide mild-relativistic cocoon. In a serious paper, we explore the emission of shear-accelerated electrons in the mixed jet-cocoon region in a series of papers. This paper focuses on the viewing angle effect for a structured jet by considering the emission from the shear-accelerated electrons. It is found that the observed synchrotron (Syn) emission peaks at the infrared band and the Syn self-Compton emission peaks at the band of hundreds of keV. They are not sensitive to the viewing angle. In the off-axis observations scenario, the prompt emission spectrum is dominated by the emission of the shear-accelerated electrons. The prompt gamma-ray spectrum of GRB 170817A can be well explained with our model by setting the velocity of the inner edge of the cocoon region as 0.9 c , the magnetic field strength as 21 G, the injected initial electron Lorentz factor as 10 ^3 , and the viewing angle as 0.44 rad. We argue that the joint observations in the infrared/optical and X-ray bands are critical to verify our model.
ISSN:1538-4357