Keywords

It has been reported that some X-ray spectra of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows cannot be fitted by a simple power law. A blackbody component is added to precisely fit the thermal feature in these spectra. Alternatively, we propose that bremsstrahlung radiation can also be one possible mechanism to explain the thermal component of the GRB X-ray afterglow. In particular, we examine the X-ray afterglow of the ultra-long GRB 130925A in this paper. By our calculation, we find that the X-ray thermal component observed by both Swift-XRT and NuSTAR can be well explained by the bremsstrahlung radiation. Our results indicate that the GRBs with the bremsstrahlung emission in the X-ray afterglow could be born in a metal-rich and dusty environment.

We have identified spectral features in the late-time X-ray afterglow of the unusually long, slow-decaying GRB 130925A using NuSTAR, Swift/X-Ray Telescope, and Chandra. A spectral component in addition to an absorbed power law is required at >4σ significance, and its spectral shape varies between two observation epochs at 2 × 10⁵ and 10⁶ s after the burst. Several models can fit this additional component, each with very different physical implications. A broad, resolved Gaussian absorption feature of several keV width improves the fit, but it is poorly constrained in the second epoch. An additive blackbody or second power-law component provide better fits. Both are challenging to interpret: the blackbody radius is near the scale of a compact remnant (10⁸ cm), while the second power-law component requires an unobserved high-energy cutoff in order to be consistent with the non-detection by Fermi/Large Area Telescope.

GRB 130925A, composed of three gamma-ray emission episodes and a series of orderly flares, has been detected by Swift, Fermi, Konus-Wind, and INTEGRAL. If the third weakest gamma-ray episode can be considered a giant flare, we find that after the second gamma-ray episode observed by INTEGRAL located at about 2000 s, a positive relation exists between the time intervals of the adjacent flares and the time since the episode. We suggest that the second gamma-ray episode and its flares originate from the resumption of the accretion process due to the fragments from the collapsar falling back; such a relation may be related to a hyperaccretion disk around a precessed black hole (BH). We propose that the origin and time evolution of the flares, and the approximately symmetrical temporal structure and spectral evolution of the single flare can be explained well by a jet precession model. In addition, the mass and spin of the BH can be constrained, which indicates a stellar-mass, fast-rotating BH located in the center of GRB 130925A.