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Title: Broadband turbulent spectra in gamma-ray burst light curves

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics and Earth Sciences, University of Ferrara, Via Saragat 1, I-44122 Ferrara (Italy)

Broadband power density spectra offer a window to understanding turbulent behavior in the emission mechanism and, at the highest frequencies, in the putative inner engines powering long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We describe a chirp search method alongside Fourier analysis for signal detection in the Poisson noise-dominated, 2 kHz sampled, BeppoSAX light curves. An efficient numerical implementation is described in O(Nnlog n) operations, where N is the number of chirp templates and n is the length of the light-curve time series, suited for embarrassingly parallel processing. For the detection of individual chirps over a 1 s duration, the method is one order of magnitude more sensitive in signal-to-noise ratio than Fourier analysis. The Fourier-chirp spectra of GRB 010408 and GRB 970816 show a continuation of the spectral slope with up to 1 kHz of turbulence identified in low-frequency Fourier analysis. The same continuation is observed in an average spectrum of 42 bright, long GRBs. An outlook on a similar analysis of upcoming gravitational wave data is included.

OSTI ID:
22356901
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 786, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English