{"paper":{"title":"Steepening of Afterglow Decay for Jets Interacting with Stratified Media","license":"","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"astro-ph","authors_text":"Alin Panaitescu (Princeton University), Pawan Kumar (IAS, Princeton)","submitted_at":"2000-03-17T19:56:50Z","abstract_excerpt":"We calculate light-curves for Gamma-Ray Burst afterglows when material ejected in the explosion is confined to a jet which propagates in a medium with a power-law density profile. The observed light-curve decay steepens by a factor of $\\Gamma^2$ when an observer sees the edge of the jet. In a uniform density medium the increase in the power-law index ($\\beta$) of the light-curve as a result of this {\\it edge effect} is $\\sim0.7$ and is completed over one decade in observer time. For a pre-ejected stellar wind ($\\rho \\propto r^{-2}$) $\\beta$ increases by $\\sim0.4$ over two decades in time due t"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"astro-ph/0003264","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/astro-ph/0003264/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}