The Afterglows of Swift-era Gamma-Ray Bursts. I. Comparing pre-Swift and Swift era Long/Soft (Type II) GRB Optical Afterglows

Understand

We have gathered optical photometry data from the literature on a large sample of Swift-era gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows including GRBs up to September 2009, for a total of 76 GRBs, and present an additional three pre-Swift GRBs not included in an earlier sample.

• Furthermore, we publish 840 additional new photometry data points on a total of 42 GRB afterglows, including large data sets for GRBs 050319, 050408, 050802, 050820A, 050922C, 060418, 080413A and 080810.
• We analyzed the light curves of all GRBs in the sample and derived spectral energy distributions for the sample with the best data quality, allowing us to estimate the host galaxy extinction.
• We transformed the afterglow light curves into an extinction-corrected z=1 system and compared their luminosities with a sample of pre-Swift afterglows.