The early optical afterglow of GRB 030418 and progenitor mass loss

The ROTSE-IIIa telescope and the SSO 40 inch (1.0 m) telescope, both located at Siding Spring Observatory, imaged the early-time afterglow of GRB 030418. In this report, we present observations of the early afterglow, first detected by the ROTSE-IIIa telescope 211 s after the start of the burst and only 76 s after the end of the gamma-ray activity. We detect optical emission that rises for ∼600 s, slowly varies around R = 17.3 mag for ∼1400 s, and then fades as a power law of index α = -1.36. Additionally, the ROTSE-IIIb telescope, located at McDonald Observatory, imaged the early-time afterglow of GRB 030723. The behavior of this light curve was qualitatively similar to that of GRB 030418, but 2 mag dimmer. These two afterglows are dissimilar to other afterglows such as GRB 990123 and GRB 021211. We investigate whether or not the early afterglow can be attributed to a synchrotron break in a cooling synchrotron spectrum as it passes through the optical band, but we find that this model is unable to accurately describe the early light curve. We present a simple model for gamma-ray burst emission emerging from a wind medium surrounding a massive progenitor star. This model provides an effective description of the data and suggests that the rise of the afterglow can be ascribed to extinction in the local circumburst environment. In this interpretation, these events provide further evidence of the connection between gamma-ray bursts and the collapse of massive stars.