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The early X-ray afterglow of gamma-ray bursts revealed by Swift carried many surprises. Following an initial steep decay the light curve often exhibits a plateau phase that can last up to several 104 s, with in addition the presence of flares in 50 per cent of the cases. We focus in this paper on the plateau phase whose origin remains highly debated. We confront several newly discovered correlations between prompt and afterglow quantities (isotropic emitted energy in gamma-rays, luminosity and duration of the plateau) to several models proposed for the origin of plateaus in order to check if they can account for these observed correlations. We first show that the scenario of plateau formation by energy injection into the forward shock leads to an efficiency crisis for the prompt phase and therefore study two possible alternatives: the first one still takes place within the framework of the standard forward shock model but allows for a variation of the microphysics parameters to reduce the radiative efficiency at early times; in the second scenario the early afterglow results from a long-lived reverse shock. Its shape then depends on the distribution of energy as a function of Lorentz factor in the ejecta. In both cases, we first present simple analytical estimates of the plateau luminosity and duration and then compute detailed light curves. In the two considered scenarios we find that plateaus following the observed correlations can be obtained under the condition that specific additional ingredients are included. In the forward shock scenario, the preferred model supposes a wind external medium and a microphysics parameter ϵe that first varies as n−ξ (n being the external density), with ξ ∼ 1 to get a flat plateau, before staying constant below a critical density n0. To produce a plateau in the reverse shock scenario the ejecta must contain a tail of low Lorentz factor with a peak of energy deposition at Γ ≳ 10. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. Gamma-ray burst (GRB) spectra globally appear non-thermal, but recent observations of a few bursts with Fermi GBM have confirmed previous indications from BATSE of the presence of an underlying thermal component. Photospheric emission is indeed expected when the relativistic outflow emerging from the central engine becomes transparent to its own radiation, with a quasiblackbody spectrum in absence of additional sub-photospheric dissipation. However, its intensity strongly depends on the acceleration mechanism - thermal or magnetic - of the flow. Aims. We aim to compute the thermal and non-thermal emissions (light curves and spectra) produced by an outflow with a variable Lorentz factor, where the power Ėiso injected at the origin is partially thermal (fraction ϵth ⩽ 1) and partially magnetic (fraction 1-ϵth). The thermal emission is produced at the photosphere, and the non-thermal emission in the optically thin regime. Apart from the value of ϵth, we want to test how the other model parameters affect the observed ratio of the thermal to non-thermal emission. Methods. We followed the adiabatic cooling of the flow from the origin to the photosphere and computed the emitted radiation, which is a sum of modified black bodies at different temperatures (as the temperature strongly depends on the Lorentz factor of each shell at transparency). If the non-thermal emission comes from internal shocks, it is obtained from a multi-shell model where a fraction of the energy dissipated in shell collision is transferred to electrons and radiated via the synchrotron mechanism. If, conversely, the non-thermal emission originates in magnetic reconnection, the lack of any detailed theory for this process forced us to use a very simple parametrisation to estimate the emitted spectrum. Results. If the non-thermal emission is made by internal shocks, we self-consistently obtained the light curves and spectra of the thermal and non-thermal components for any distribution of the Lorentz factor in the flow. If the non-thermal emission results from magnetic reconnection we were unable to produce a light curve and could only compare the respective non-thermal and thermal spectra. In the different considered cases, we varied the model parameters to see when the thermal component in the light curve and/or spectrum is likely to show up or, on the contrary, to be hidden. We finally compared our results to the proposed evidence for the presence of a thermal component in GRB spectra. Focussing on GRB 090902B and GRB10072B, we showed how these observations can be used to constrain the nature and acceleration mechanism of GRBoutflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. The Swift-XRT observations of the early X-ray afterglow of GRBs show that it usually begins with a steep decay phase. Aims. A possible origin of this early steep decay is the high latitude emission that subsists when the on-axis emission of the last dissipating regions in the relativistic outflow has been switched-off. We wish to establish which of serious models of the prompt emission are compatible with this interpretation. Methods. We successively consider internal shocks, photospheric emission, and magnetic reconnection and obtain the typical decay timescale at the end of the prompt phase in each case. Results. Only internal shocks naturally predict a decay timescale comparable to the burst duration, as required to explain XRT observations in terms of high latitude emission. The decay timescale of the high latitude emission is much too short in photospheric models and the observed decay must then correspond to an effective and generic behavior of the central engine. Reconnection models require some ad hoc assumptions to agree with the data, which will have to be validated when s better description of the reconnection process becomes available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context. GRB 080503, detected by Swift, belongs to the class of bursts whose prompt phase consists of an initial short spike followed by a longer soft tail. It did not show any transition to a regular afterglow at the end of the prompt emission but exhibited a surprising rebrightening after one day. Aims. We aim to explain this rebrightening with two different scenarios - refreshed shocks or a density clump in the circumburst medium - and two models for the origin of the afterglow, the standard one where it comes from the forward shock, and an alternative one where it results from a long-lived reverse shock. Methods. We computed afterglow light curves either using a single-zone approximation for the shocked region or a detailed multizone method that more accurately accounts for the compression of the material. Results. We find that in several of the considered cases the detailed model must be used to obtain a reliable description of the shock dynamics. The density clump scenario is not favored. We confirm previous results that the presence of the clump has little effect on the forward shock emission, except if the microphysics parameters evolve when the shock enters the clump. Moreover, we find that the rebrightening from the reverse shock is also too weak when it is calculated with the multi-zone method. On the other hand, in the refreshed-shock scenario both the forward and reverse shock models provide satisfactory fits of the data under some additional conditions on the distribution of the Lorentz factor in the ejecta and the beaming angle of the relativistic outflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]