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First Detection of Faraday Rotation in a Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow: Low Polarization and High Rotation Measure in GRB 260310A Reveal the Jet's Magnetic Structure and Environment

  • Authors: Collin T. Christy, Tanmoy Laskar, Kate D. Alexander, Noah Franz, Jonathan Granot, Ryan Chornock, Raffaella Margutti, Ramandeep Gill, Jeniveve Pearson, Edo Berger, Wen-fai Fong, Coleman Rohde, Patricia Schady

Collin T. Christy et al 2026 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1006 .

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 3.

(a) The measured flux density of Stokes I, (b) the linear polarization flux density, and (c) the linear polarization fraction ΠL as a function of frequency. We show the best-fitting model (Equation (B11); dotted lines, shaded regions are 1σ posteriors), which show a constant linear polarization intensity and fraction that decays exponentially to lower frequencies. (d) We show the Stokes U versus Q colorized by observed frequency. The data exhibit a spiral structure indicative of Faraday rotation. The solid line shows the depolarization frequency response derived from Equation (B11), and the shaded region indicates the average 3σ detection threshold for PL. (e) The polarization angle ﹩\chi =(1/2)\arctan (U/Q)﹩ as a function of λ2. The data reveal a steep slope corresponding to a rotation measure (RM) of ∣RM∣ ≈ 6.3 × 103 rad m−2, indicative of a highly ordered magnetic field structure along the LOS.

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