A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF GAMMA-RAY BURST OPTICAL EMISSION. III. BRIGHTNESS DISTRIBUTIONS AND LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS OF OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS
- Department of Physics and GXU-NAOC Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004 (China)
- National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 (China)
We continue our systematic statistical study on optical afterglow data of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We present the apparent magnitude distributions of early optical afterglows at different epochs (t = 10{sup 2} s, 10{sup 3} s, and 1 hr) for the optical light curves of a sample of 93 GRBs (the global sample) and for sub-samples with an afterglow onset bump or a shallow decay segment. For the onset sample and shallow decay sample we also present the brightness distribution at the peak time t{sub p} and break time t{sub b}, respectively. All the distributions can be fit with Gaussian functions. We further perform Monte Carlo simulations to infer the luminosity function of GRB optical emission at the rest-frame time 10{sup 3} s, t{sub p}, and t{sub b}. Our results show that a single power-law luminosity function is adequate to model the data with indices -1.40 {+-} 0.10, -1.06 {+-} 0.16, and -1.54 {+-} 0.22. Based on the derived rest-frame 10{sup 3} s luminosity function, we generate the intrinsic distribution of the R-band apparent magnitude M{sub R} at the observed time 10{sup 3} s post-trigger, which peaks at M{sub R} = 22.5 mag. The fraction of GRBs whose R-band magnitude is fainter than 22 mag and 25 mag and at the observer time 10{sup 3} s are {approx}63% and {approx}25%, respectively. The detection probabilities of the optical afterglows with ground-based robotic telescopes and the UV-Optical Telescope on board Swift are roughly consistent with that inferred from this intrinsic M{sub R} distribution, indicating that the variations of the dark GRB fraction among the samples with different telescopes may be due to the observational selection effect, although the existence of an intrinsically dark GRB population cannot be ruled out.
- OSTI ID:
- 22133852
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 774, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
THE AFTERGLOW AND ULIRG HOST GALAXY OF THE DARK SHORT GRB 120804A
EXPLORING THE GALAXY MASS-METALLICITY RELATION AT z {approx} 3-5