X-ray Afterglow limits on the viewing angles of short gamma-ray bursts

The observed behavior of a short gamma-ray burst (sGRB) afterglow lightcurve can reveal the angular structure of the relativistic jet and constrain the observer's viewing angle θₒbs. Regardless of viewing angle, the afterglow emission is produced by the interaction between the relativistic jet and its surrounding environment. However, the observed deceleration time of the jet, and, therefore, the time of the afterglow peak, depends on the observer's viewing angle. A larger viewing angle leads to a later peak of the afterglow and a lower flux at peak. We use the the earliest X-ray afterglow detections of 58 cosmological sGRBs detected with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory X-ray Telescope to set an upper limit on the ratio of the viewing angle θₒbs to the jet's half-opening angle θc. We adopt a power-law angular jet structure in both energy E(θ)∝θ⁻ᵃ and Lorentz factor Γ(θ)∝θ⁻ᵇ beyond the core. For this structured jet scenario we find that either sGRBs are viewed within θₒbs/θc<1 or the initial Lorentz factor of material in their jet's core is extremely high (Γ₀>500). If we consider a tophat jet structure, we constrain 90% of our sample to be viewed within θₒbs/θc<1.06 and 1.15 for our canonical and conservative afterglow scenarios. For a subset of events with measurements of the jet break, under the assumption that they on-axis we can constrain Γ₀θc 30. This confirmation that cosmological sGRBs are viewed either on-axis or very close to their jet's core has significant implications for the nature of the prompt gamma-ray production mechanism and for the rate of future sGRB detections coincident with gravitational waves (GWs), implying that they are extremely rare.