Shallow Decay of Early X-ray Afterglows from Inhomogeneous Gamma-Ray   Burst Jets
  Almost all the X-ray afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed by the Swift satellite have a shallow decay phase in the first thousands of seconds. We show that in an inhomogeneous jet (multiple-subjet or patchy-shell) model the superposition of the afterglows of off-axis subjets (patchy shells) can have the shallow decay phase. The necessary condition for obtaining the shallow decay phase is that gamma-ray bright subjets (patchy shells) should have gamma-ray efficiency higher than previously estimated, and should be surrounded by gamma-ray dim subjets (patchy shells) with low gamma-ray efficiency. Our model predicts that events with dim prompt emission have the conventional afterglow light curve without the shallow decay phase like GRB 050416A. 
Kenji Toma, Kunihito Ioka, Ryo Yamazaki, and Takashi Nakamura