COMPTONIZATION SIGNATURES IN THE PROMPT EMISSION OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

We report results of a systematic study of the broadband (2-2000 keV) time-resolved prompt emission spectra of a sample of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected with both Wide Field Cameras (WFCs) on board the BeppoSAX satellite and the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on board the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The main goal of this paper is to test spectral models of the GRB prompt emission that have recently been proposed. In particular, we test a recent photospheric model proposed, i.e., blackbody plus power law, the addition of a blackbody emission to the Band function in the cases in which this function does not fit the data, and a recent Comptonization model. By considering the few spectra for which the simple Band function does not provide a fully acceptable fit to the data, we find a statistically significant better fit by adding a blackbody to this function only in one case. We confirm earlier results found fitting the BATSE spectra alone with a blackbody plus power law. Instead, when the BATSE GRB spectra are joined to those obtained with WFCs (2-28 keV), this model becomes unacceptable in most time intervals in which we subdivide the GRB light curves. We find instead that the Comptonization model is always acceptable, even in the few cases in which the Band function is inconsistent with the data. We discuss the implications of these results.