Broad-Band Modelling of GRB Afterglows

Abstract

Observations of GRB afterglows ranging from radio to X-ray frequencies generate large data sets. Careful analysis of these broad-band data can give us insight into the nature of the GRB progenitor population by yielding such information like the totalenergy of the burst, the geometry of the fireballand the type of environment into which the GRB explodes. We illustrate, by example, how global, self-consistent fits are a robust approach for characterizing the afterglow emission. This approach allows a relatively simple comparison of different models and a way to determine the strengths and weaknesses of these models, since all are treated self-consistently. Here we quantify the main di?erences between the broad-band, self-consistent approach and the traditional approach, using GRB000301C and GRB970508 as test cases.

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