GAMMA-RAY BURSTS IN CIRCUMSTELLAR SHELLS: A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR FLARES

It is now generally accepted that long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are due to the collapse of massive rotating stars. The precise collapse process itself, however, is not yet fully understood. Strong winds, outbursts, and intense ionizing UV radiation from single stars or strongly interacting binaries are expected to destroy the molecular cloud cores that give birth to them and create highly complex circumburst environments for the explosion. Such environments might imprint features on GRB light curves that uniquely identify the nature of the progenitor and its collapse. We have performed numerical simulations of realistic environments for a variety of long-duration GRB progenitors with ZEUS-MP and have developed an analytical method for calculating GRB light curves in these profiles. Though a full, three-dimensional, relativistic magnetohydrodynamical computational model is required to precisely describe the light curve from a GRB in complex environments, our method can provide a qualitative understanding of these phenomena. We find that, in the context of the standard afterglow model, massive shells around GRBs produce strong signatures in their light curves, and that this can distinguish them from those occurring in uniform media or steady winds. These features can constrain the mass of the shell and the properties of the wind before and after the ejection. Moreover, the interaction of the GRB with the circumburst shell is seen to produce features that are consistent with observed X-ray flares that are often attributed to delayed energy injection by the central engine. Our algorithm for computing light curves is also applicable to GRBs in a variety of environments such as those in high-redshift cosmological halos or protogalaxies, both of which will soon be targets of future surveys such as the Joint Astrophysics Nascent Satellite or Lobster.