A Possible X-ray and Gamma-ray Quasi-Periodic Oscillation in GRB 241030A
Abstract
Quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) in gamma-ray intensity have been reported from a few gamma-ray bursts. These QPOs could be related to fundamental frequencies in the sources, which would lead to new insights about these systems. Here we report on our analysis of GRB~241030A, a several-minute-long burst with ∼ 10 gamma-ray flares that have approximate periodicities at f ~ 0.04 Hz and f ~ 0.08 Hz. This quasi-periodicity is seen in X-rays with the Swift X-Ray Telescope (XRT) as well as in gamma-rays with the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). Compared with a power spectral model that has only red noise, the Bayes factor in favor of a Lorentzian-shaped QPO is more than 10200, even when the red noise is described by segments with up to four different slopes. However, the interpretation of this power spectral feature as a QPO rather than as a fluctuation in red noise is complicated by the low frequency of the feature as well as the extremely large number of counts, which amplifies differences from smooth power spectral distributions. After discussing the properties of the apparent QPO, we discuss a few processes that could plausibly modulate the flux at this frequency. Among the mechanisms considered, we find the most plausible explanation to be a GRB jet passing through regularly spaced shells of circumburst material, possibly produced by binary interactions near periastron in an eccentric progenitor system.
Related
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- Eight Gamma-Ray Bursts Observed with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor: Significant Quasi-thermal Components and Conditional Jet Constraints
BibTeX
@misc{klingler2026possible,
title = {{A Possible X-ray and Gamma-ray Quasi-Periodic Oscillation in GRB 241030A}},
author = {Noel Klingler and Cecilia Chirenti and M. Coleman Miller and Amy Lien and Simone Dichiara},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.05745},
eprint = {2609.05745},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05745},
note = {CC BY-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Possible X-ray and Gamma-ray Quasi-Periodic Oscillation in GRB 241030A
AU - Noel Klingler
AU - Cecilia Chirenti
AU - M. Coleman Miller
AU - Amy Lien
AU - Simone Dichiara
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.05745
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.05745
AB - Quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) in gamma-ray intensity have been reported from a few gamma-ray bursts. These QPOs could be related to fundamental frequencies in the sources, which would lead to new insights about these systems. Here we report on our analysis of GRB~241030A, a several-minute-long burst with ∼ 10 gamma-ray flares that have approximate periodicities at f ~ 0.04 Hz and f ~ 0.08 Hz. This quasi-periodicity is seen in X-rays with the Swift X-Ray Telescope (XRT) as well as in gamma-rays with the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). Compared with a power spectral model that has only red noise, the Bayes factor in favor of a Lorentzian-shaped QPO is more than 10^200, even when the red noise is described by segments with up to four different slopes. However, the interpretation of this power spectral feature as a QPO rather than as a fluctuation in red noise is complicated by the low frequency of the feature as well as the extremely large number of counts, which amplifies differences from smooth power spectral distributions. After discussing the properties of the apparent QPO, we discuss a few processes that could plausibly modulate the flux at this frequency. Among the mechanisms considered, we find the most plausible explanation to be a GRB jet passing through regularly spaced shells of circumburst material, possibly produced by binary interactions near periastron in an eccentric progenitor system.
ER -