<i>Swift</i>and<i>XMM‐Newton</i>Observations of the Extraordinary Gamma‐Ray Burst 060729: More than 125 Days of X‐Ray Afterglow

Abstract

We report the results of the Swift andXMM-Newtonobservations of the Swift-discoveredGRB060729 (T90 115 s). The afterglow of this burst was exceptionally bright in X-rays as well as at UV/optical wavelengths, showing an unusually long slow decay phase ( 0:14 0:02), suggesting a larger energy injection phase at early times than in other bursts. The X-ray light curve displays a break at about 60 ks after the burst. The X-ray decay slope after the break is 1:29 0:03. Up to 125 days after the burst we do not detect a jet break, suggesting that the jet opening angle is larger than 28. We find that the X-ray spectra of the early phase change dramatically and can all be fitted by an absorbed singleYpower-law models or alternatively by a blackbody plus power-law model. The power-law fits show that the X-ray spectrum becomes steeper while the absorption column density decreases. In the blackbody model the temperature decreases from kT 0:6 to 0.1 keV between 85 and 160 s after the burst in the rest frame. The afterglow was clearly detected up to 9 days after the burst in all six UVOT filters and in UVW1 even for 31 days. A break at about 50 ks is clearly detected in all six UVOT filters from a shallow decay slope of about 0.3 and a steeper decay slope of 1.3.The XMM-Newton observations started about 12 hr after the burst and show a typical afterglow X-ray spectrum with X 1:1 and absorption column density of 1; 1021 cm2. Subject headinggs: gamma rays: bursts — X-rays: bursts Online material: color figure 1.