The Ep-flux correlation in the rising and decaying phases of gamma-ray burst pulses: Evidence for viewing angle effect?

Abstract

A time-resolved spectral analysis for a sample of 22 intense, broad gamma-ray burst (GRB) pulses from the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO)/BATSE GRB sample is presented. We fit the spectra with the Band function and investigate the correlation between the observed flux (F) and the peak energy (Ep) of the νfν spectrum in the rising and decaying phases of these pulses. Two kinds of Ep evolution trends, i.e., hard-to-soft (two-thirds of the pulses in our sample) and Ep-tracing- F (one-third of the pulses in our sample), are observed in pulses from different GRBs and even from different pulses of the same burst. No dependence of spectral evolution feature on the pulse shape is found. A tight F-Ep positive correlation is observed in the decaying phases, with a power-law index ∼2.2, which is much shallower than that expected from the curvature effect. In the rising phase, the observed F is either correlated or anti-correlated with Ep, depending on the spectral evolution feature, and the power-law index of the correlation is dramatically different among pulses. More than 80% of the low-energy photon indices in the time-resolved spectra, whose E p 's are anti-correlated with F during the rising phase, violate the death line of the synchrotron radiation, disfavoring the synchrotron radiation model for these gamma rays. The F-Esp correlation, especially for those GRBs with Ep-tracking-F spectral evolution, may be due to the viewing angle and jet structure effects. In this scenario, the observed F-E p correlation in the rising phase may be due to the line of sight toward a structured jet (or jetter) moving from off-beam to on-beam, and both the on-beam emission and the delayed photons from high latitude of the GRB fireball contribute to the decaying phase, resulting in a shallower slope of the observed F-Ep correlation than that predicted by the pure curvature effect. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.