Spectral and Polarization Properties of Photospheric Emission From Stratified Jets

Hirotaka Ito, Shigehiro Nagataki, Jin Matsumoto, Shiu-Hang Lee, Alexey Tolstov, Jirong Mao, Maria Dainotti, Akira Mizuta

Published 2014-05-24Version 1

We explore the spectral and polarization properties of photospheric emissions from stratified jets in which multiple components, separated by a sharp velocity shear regions, are distributed in lateral direction. Propagation of thermal photons injected at high optical depth region are calculated until they escape from the photosphere. It is found that presence of the lateral structure within the jet leads to non-thermal feature of the spectra and significant polarization signal in the resulting emission. The deviation from thermal spectra as well as the polarization degree tends to be enhanced as the velocity gradient in the shear region increases. In particular, we show that emissions from multi-component jet can reproduce the typical observed spectra of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) irrespective to the position of the observer when a velocity shear region is closely spaced in various lateral ($\theta$) positions. The degree of polarization associated in the emission is significant (> few%) at wide range of observer angles and can be higher than 30%.