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The x-ray afterglow of GRB 030329

May, 2003
9 pages
Published in:
  • Astron.Astrophys. 409 (2003) 983-988
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Abstract: (arXiv)
We report on XMM-Newton and Rossi-XTE observations of the bright (fluence ∼\sim 10−4^{-4} erg cm−2^{-2}) and nearby (z=0.1685) Gamma-Ray Burst GRB030329 associated to SN2003dh. The first Rossi-XTE observation, 5 hours after the burst, shows a flux decreasing with time as a power law with index 0.9±\pm0.3. Such a decay law is only marginally consistent with a further Rossi-XTE measurement (at t-tGRB∼_{GRB}\sim30 hr). Late time observations of this bright afterglow at X-ray wavelengths have the advantage, compared to optical observations, of not being affected by contributions from the supernova and host galaxy. A first XMM-Newton observation, at t-tGRB∼_{GRB}\sim37 days, shows a flux of 4×10−14\times10^{-14} erg cm−2^{-2} s−1^{-1} (0.2-10 keV). The spectrum is a power law with photon index Γ\Gamma=1.9 and absorption <2.5×1020<2.5\times10^{20} cm−2^{-2}, consistent with the Galactic value. A further XMM-Newton pointing at t-tGRB∼_{GRB}\sim61 days shows a flux fainter by a factor ∼\sim2. The combined Rossi-XTE and XMM-Newton measurements require a break at t∼\sim0.5 days in the afterglow decay, with a power law index increasing from 0.9 to 1.9, similar to what is observed in the early part of the optical afterglow. The extrapolation of the XMM-Newton spectra to optical frequencies lies a factor of ∼10\sim10 below simultaneous measurements. This is likely due to the presence of SN2003dh.