X-ray afterglow light curves: toward a standard candle?

We investigate the clustering of afterglow light curves observed at X-ray and optical wavelengths. We construct a sample of 34 bursts with known distance and X-ray afterglow. We correct the light curves for cosmological effects and compare the observed X-ray fluxes one day after the burst. We check for correlations between the observed flux and the burst spectral and temporal properties. We confirm the previous result of Boër and Gendre (2000) that X-ray afterglow light curves cluster in luminosity, even when we consider the SWIFT data. We observe this clustering only for the afterglow light curves; the inclusion of prompt-related data broaden the distribution. The same clustering is observed for the optical light curves; GRB sources can be divided in three classes, namely optical and X-ray bright afterglows, optical and X-ray dim ones, and optically bright-X-ray dim ones. We argue that this clustering is related to the fireball total energy, the external medium density, the fraction of fireball energy going in relativistic electrons and magnetic fields. These parameters can be either fixed to a standard value, or correlated.