Steep Decay Phase Shaped by the Curvature Effect. II. Spectral Evolution

Da-Bin Lin, Hui-Jun Mu, Yun-Feng Liang, Tong Liu, Wei-Min Gu, Rui-Jing Lu, Xiang-Gao Wang, En-Wei Liang

Published 2017-04-17Version 1

We derive a simple analytical formula to describe the evolution of spectral index $\beta$ in the steep decay phase shaped by the curvature effect with assumption that the spectral parameters and Lorentz factor of jet shell is the same for different latitude. Here, the value of $\beta$ is estimated in 0.3$-$10keV energy band. For a spherical thin shell with a cutoff power law (CPL) intrinsic radiation spectrum, the spectral evolution can be read as a linear function of observer time. For the situation with Band function intrinsic radiation spectrum, the spectral evolution may be complex. If the observed break energy of radiation spectrum is larger than 10keV, the spectral evolution is the same as that shaped by jet shells with a CPL spectrum. If the observed break energy is less than 0.3keV, the value of $\beta$ would be a constant. Others, the spectral evolution can be approximated as a logarithmal function of the observer time in generally.