# Intrinsic Parameters of GRB990123 from Its Prompt Optical Flash and Afterglow

## 1 Introduction

The current standard model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows is the fireball-plus-shock model (see Piran 1999 for a review). It involves that a large amount of energy, $`E_010^{5154}`$ ergs, is released within a few seconds in a small volume with negligible baryonic load, $`Mc^2E_0`$. This leads to a fireball that expands ultra-relativistically with a Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0E_0/Mc^2>100`$ required to avoid the attenuation of hard $`\gamma `$-rays due to pair production (e.g. Woods $`\&`$ Loeb 1995; Fenimore, Epstein $`\&`$ Ho 1993). A substantial fraction of the kinetic energy of the baryons is transferred to a non-thermal population of relativistic electrons through Fermi acceleration in the shock ($`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ $`\&`$ Rees 1993). The accelerated electrons cool via synchrotron emission and inverse Compton scattering in the post-shock magnetic fields and produce the radiation observed in GRBs and their afterglows (e.g. Katz 1994; Sari et al. 1996; Vietri 1997; Waxman 1997a; Wijers et al. 1997). The shock could be either $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙}`$ due to collisions between fireball shells caused by outflow variability (Paczy$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{n}}`$ski $`\&`$ Xu 1994; Rees $`\&`$ $`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ 1994), or $`\mathrm{𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙}`$ due to the interaction of the fireball with the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM; $`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ $`\&`$ Rees 1993). The radiation from internal shocks can explain the spectra (Pilla $`\&`$ Loeb 1998) and the fast irregular variability of GRBs (Sari $`\&`$ Piran 1997), while the synchrotron emission from the external shocks provides a successful model for the broken power law spectra and the power law decay of afterglow light curves (e.g. Waxman 1997a,b; Wijers, Rees $`\&`$ $`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ 1997; Vietri 1997; Dai $`\&`$ Lu 1998a,b,c; Dai et al. 1999; Wang et al. 1999a,b; Huang et al. 1998a,b; 1999a,b).

The properties of the synchrotron emission from GRB shocks are determined by the magnetic field strength, $`B`$, and the electron energy distribution behind the shock. Both of them are difficult to estimate from first principles, and so the following dimensionless parameters are often used to incorporate modeling uncertainties (Sari et al. 1996), $`ϵ_B\frac{U_B}{e_{th}}`$, $`ϵ_e\frac{U_e}{e_{th}}`$. Here $`U_B`$ and $`U_e`$ are the magnetic and electron energy densities and $`e_{th}=nm_pc^2(\gamma _p1)`$ is the total thermal energy density behind the shocks, where $`m_p`$ is the proton mass, $`n`$ is the proton number density, and $`\gamma _p`$ is the mean thermal Lorentz factor of the protons. In spite of these uncertainties, an important assumption that $`ϵ_B`$ and $`ϵ_e`$ do not change with time, has been made in the standard external shock model. Through the computation, Wijers $`\&`$ Galama (1998; hereafter WG99) even suggested that they may be universal parameters, i.e. the same for different bursts.

The BeppoSAX satellite ushered in 1999 with the discovery of GRB990123 (Heise et al. 1999), the brightest GRB seen by BeppoSAX to date. This is a very strong burst. An assumption of isotropic emission and the detection of the source’s redshift $`z=1.6004`$ , lead to a huge energy release about $`1.6\times 10^{54}`$ergs (Briggs et al. 1999; Kulkarni et al. 1999a) in $`\gamma `$-rays alone. GRB990123 would have been amongest the most exciting GRBs even just on the basis of these facts. Furthermore, ROTSE discovered a prompt optical flash of 9-th magnitude (Akerlof et al. 1999). It is the first time that a prompt emission in another wavelength apart from $`\gamma `$-rays has been detected from GRB. Such a strong optical flash was predicted to arise from a reverse external shock propagating into the relativistic ejecta ($`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ $`\&`$ Rees 1997; Sari $`\&`$ Piran 1999a,b, hereafter SP99a,b). This is the so called “early afterglow”. The five last exposures of ROTSE show a power law decay with a slope of $``$2.0, which can also be explained by the reverse shock model (SP99b; $`\mathrm{M}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}\mathrm{sz}\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{a}}\mathrm{ros}`$ $`\&`$ Rees 1999). The usual afterglows in X-ray, optical, IR and radio bands were also detected after the burst. They have two distinguishing features: 1) the radio emission is unique both due to its very early appearance and its rapid decline; 2) the temporal decaying behaviour of the $`r`$-band light curve after two days steepens from about $`t^{1.1}`$ to $`t^{1.8}`$ (Kulkarni et al. 1999a; Fruchter et al. 1999; Casrto-Tirado et al. 1999), and this steepening might be due to a jet which has transited from a spherical-like phase to sideways expansion phase (Rhoads 1999; Sari et al. 1999; Wei $`\&`$ Lu 1999) or a dense medium which has slowed down the relativistic expansion of shock quickly to a non-relativistic one (Dai $`\&`$ Lu 1999a,b).

Galama et al. (1999) assumed that the radio emission is produced by the forward shock as usual and then reconstructed the radio-to-X-ray afterglow spectrum on January 24.65 UT. However, later work shows that the simplest interpretation of this “radio flare” is that it arises in the reverse shock and that such radio emission is an inevitable consequence of the prompt bright optical flash seen by ROTSE (Kulkarni et al. 1999b; Sari $`\&`$ Piran 1999b). Kulkarni et al. (1999b) also constrained two key parameters of the forward shock, the peak flux $`F_{\nu _m}`$ and the peak frequency $`\nu _m`$, to within a factor of two. For previous bursts, we have no other information apart from the afterglow to infer the intrinsic parameters of the external shocks. But now the optical flash of GRB990123 has been fortunately detected, which enables us to determine another two key parameters, the initial Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ and the Lorentz factor of the reverse shock $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rs}`$. WG99 computed the intrinsic parameters of GRB970508 and GRB971214 in terms of their afterglow data, and found that $`ϵ_e`$ is nearly the same for these two bursts, suggesting it may be a universal parameter. Granot, Piran $`\&`$ Sari (1998a,b; hereafter GPS99a,b) modified the set of equations derived by WG99, and inferred the electron energy density fraction and the magnetic energy density fraction of GRB970508 to be: $`ϵ_e=0.57`$; $`ϵ_B=8.2\times 10^3`$. Here we apply the set of equations of GPS99a to GRB990123 and try to determine some intrinsic parameters based on the information of the two aspects of GRB990123—the optical flash and the afterglow.

The initial Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is also an important physical parameter of GRBs. It is a crucial ingredient for constraining models of the source itself, since it specifies how “clean” the fireball is as the baryonic load is $`ME_0/\mathrm{\Gamma }_0c^2`$. Unfortunately, the spectrum of GRBs can provide only a lower limit to this Lorentz factor ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0>100`$). Moreover, the current afterglow observations, which detect radiation from several hours after the burst, do not provide a verification of the initial extreme relativistic motion. A possible method to estimate $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ of GRBs has been suggested by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999a), based on identifying the “early afterglow” peak time. In this paper, the initial Lorentz factor has been inferred more precisely from the full set of equations describing the reverse shock region.

In section 2 and 3, we compute the intrinsic parameters of GRB990123 from its afterglow and optical flash information. In the final section, we give our conclusions.

## 2  Parameters from the afterglow

Intrinsic parameters like the magnetic energy density fraction $`ϵ_B`$, electron energy density fraction $`ϵ_e`$, energy in the forward external shock $`EE_{52}\times 10^{52}`$ ergs and ambient density $`n`$ can be determined from the afterglow spectrum (GPS99a,b; WG99), i. e. if we know all three break frequencies (not necessary at the same time) and the peak flux of the afterglow, we can infer all these parameters.

¿From the observations of the afterglow of GRB990123, Kulkarni et al. (1999b) have estimated two key parameters of the forward shock: $`\nu _m1.1\times 10^{13}\mathrm{Hz}`$ and $`F_{\nu _m}170\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ at the time $`t_{}=1.25\mathrm{days}`$ after the burst. The cooling frequency $`\nu _c`$ cannot be seen from the radio-to-X-ray spectrum obtained by Galama et al (1999). This indicates that $`\nu _c`$ is at or above the X-ray frequencies. We need to determine it more precisely. The X-ray afterglow, observed 6 hours after the burst, decayed with $`\alpha _X=1.44\pm 0.07`$ ( Heise et al. 1999), while the optical afterglow with $`\alpha _r=1.10\pm 0.03`$ (Kulkarni et al., 1999). An X-ray afterglow decay slope steeper by $`\frac{1}{4}`$ than an optical decay, which seems to be the case in this burst, is predicted by Sari, Piran and Narayan (1998), if the cooling frequency is between the X-rays and the optical. So at the time 6 hours after the burst , $`4\times 10^{14}\nu _c\nu _X(4.444)\times 10^{17}`$Hz. Extrapolating it to the time $`t_{}`$ as $`\nu _ct^{\frac{1}{2}}`$, we get $`1.8\times 10^{14}`$Hz$`\nu _c(t_{})(220)\times 10^{17}`$Hz. Another speculative constraint on $`\nu _c`$ is obtained from the GRB spectrum itself by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b), who constrained $`\nu _c2\times 10^{19}`$Hz at the time $`t50`$ sec. Extrapolating it to $`t_{}`$, we get $`\nu _c(t_{})0.4\times 10^{18}`$. Now $`\nu _c`$ is almost determined, and we take the approximate value $`\nu _c=0.5\times 10^{18}`$Hz, which is in agreement with the estimate of Galama et al (1999). In addition, Kulkarni et al. (1999a) have inferred the electron index $`p`$ (defined as $`N(\gamma _e)\gamma _{e}^{}{}_{}{}^{p}`$) to be $`p=2.44`$. Now, apart from the self-absorption frequency $`\nu _a`$, we have all other three quantities of the afterglow spectrum required to calculate the intrinsic parameters:

$$\nu _m1.1\times 10^{13}\mathrm{Hz},\nu _c0.5\times 10^{18}\mathrm{Hz},F_{\nu _m}170\mu \mathrm{Jy},p2.44$$
(1)   
Following GPS99b, we adopt the formulas of $`\nu _m`$ and $`F_{\nu _m}`$ from GPS99a and $`\nu _c`$ from Sari, Piran $`\&`$ Narayan (1998):

$$\nu _m2.9\times 10^{15}(1+z)^{1/2}(\frac{p2}{p1})^2ϵ_{B}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}ϵ_{e}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}E_{52}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}t_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{3/2}\mathrm{Hz};$$
(2)   
$$F_{\nu _m}1.7\times 10^4(1+z)ϵ_{B}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}E_{52}n_{1}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}(\frac{d_L}{10^{28}\mathrm{cm}})^2\mu \mathrm{Jy};$$
(3)   
$$\nu _c2.7\times 10^{12}ϵ_{B}^{}{}_{}{}^{3/2}E_{52}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}n^1t_{d}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}(1+z)^{1/2}\mathrm{Hz},$$
(4)   
where $`z`$ is the redshift of the burst and $`d_L=2c(1+z\sqrt{1+z})/H_0`$ is the luminosity distance.

Now we have three equations (2), (3) and (4) with four unknowns: $`ϵ_e`$, $`ϵ_B`$, $`E_{52}`$ and $`n`$. To solve these equations, we here assume that the electron density fraction $`ϵ_e`$ is the same for different bursts, just an argument of WG99, though in which a different set of equations are used. Since we here use the formulas of GPS99a, we adopt the value of $`ϵ_e`$ from that of GRB970508 inferred according to the above formulas, i.e. $`ϵ_e0.57`$(GPS99b).

By combining Eqs.(1) and (2)-(4), we get the values of four intrinsic parameters of the forward shock region:

$$ϵ_e0.57ϵ_B3.1\times 10^3n0.01E_{52}5$$
(5)   
We astonishingly find that the value $`ϵ_B`$ inferred is very close to that of GRB970508 ($`ϵ_B8.2\times 10^3`$; GPS99b), considering the uncertainties in the $`\nu _m`$ and $`F_{\nu _m}`$ of a factor of two. This result supports our above adoption of the value of $`ϵ_e`$ and implies that $`ϵ_e`$ and $`ϵ_B`$ may be universal parameters (i.e. constants for every GRBs), favouring the argument of WG99.

The ambient density $`n`$ inferred for GRB990123 is $`n0.01`$. This density is on the low side of normal for a disc of galaxy but definitely higher than expected for a halo, lending a further support to the notion that bursts occur in gas-rich environment. The inferred isotropic energy left in the adiabatic forward shock is $`E5\times 10^{52}`$ergs, about thirty times less than the isotropic energy in $`\gamma `$-rays. This case is very similar to GRB971214 (WG99). We think, for GRB990123, there are two processes causing $`E_{52}<E_{52,\gamma }`$. One is that there is a radiative evolution phase before the adiabatic phase, causing it to emit more of the initial explosion energy and leaving less for the adiabatic phase. According to Sari, Piran $`\&`$ Narayan (1998), we can estimate the reduced energy of the forward shock in the self-similar deceleration stage, i.e.

$$E_{f,52}0.02ϵ_{B}^{}{}_{}{}^{3/5}ϵ_{e}^{}{}_{}{}^{3/5}E_{i,52}^{}{}_{}{}^{4/5}(\mathrm{\Gamma }_A/100)^{4/5}n^{2/5},$$
(6)   
where $`E_{i,52}`$ denotes the initial isotropic energy of the forward shock during the self-similar stage and $`E_{f,52}`$ denotes the final energy after the radiative phase. The value of $`E_{i,52}`$ is difficult to be determined precisely and it may be less than $`E_{52,\gamma }`$ for GRB990123, according to Freedman & Waxman (2000). If we use $`E_{i,52}E_{52,\gamma }`$ , $`ϵ_e0.57`$, $`ϵ_B8.2\times 10^3`$ (instead of $`ϵ_B3.1\times 10^3`$, since the latter is less reliable than the former, considering the uncertainties in the $`\nu _m`$ and $`F_{\nu _m}`$ of a factor of two for GRB990123.), $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A300`$ (see the next section) and $`n0.01`$, we then get $`E_{f,52}56`$. The other process is the sideways expansion of the fireball jet (Kulkarni et al.1999a,b), which can also reduce the energy per solid angle, hence the isotropic energy $`E_{52}`$. Since the opening angle of the jet is $`\theta =\theta _0+c_st_{proper}/ct\theta _0+\gamma ^1`$ (Sari, Piran $`\&`$ Halpern 1999; Rhoads 1999), at the time $`t=1.25`$days (very near the break time of the jet evolution $`t_b2.1`$days), $`\gamma \frac{1}{\theta _0}`$ (note that $`\gamma t^{3/8}`$), then $`\theta 2\theta _0`$. Therefore, the real isotropic energy $`E_{52}`$ left in the late adiabatic forward shock should be $`56(\frac{2\theta _0}{\theta _0})^214`$ , in rough agreement with the above value inferred from the afterglow spectrum. An additional possible loss of energy may be the reverse shock itself if it is radiative.

## 3 Parameters from the optical flash

An optical flash is considered to be produced by the reverse external shock, which heats up the shell’s matter and accelerates its electrons (SP99b; M$`\stackrel{´}{e}`$sz$`\stackrel{´}{a}`$ros $`\&`$ Rees 1999). BATSE’s observations triggered ROTSE via BACODINE system (Akerlof et al. 1999). An 11.82 magnitude optical flash was detected on the first 5 seconds exposure, 22.18 seconds after the onset of the burst. Then the optical emission peaked in the following 5 seconds exposure, 25 seconds later, which revealed an 8.95 magnitude signal ($``$1Jy). The optical signal decayed to 10.08 magnitude 25 seconds later and continued to decay down to 14.53 magnitude in the subsequent three 75 seconds exposures that took place up to 10 minutes after the burst. The five last exposures depict a power law decay with a slope $`2.0`$ (Akerlof et al. 1999; SP99b). Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b) and M$`\stackrel{´}{e}`$sz$`\stackrel{´}{a}`$ros $`\&`$ Rees (1999) assumed that the ejecta shell follows the Blandford-McKee (1976) self-similar solution after the reverse shock has passed through it and explained the decay of $`t^{2.0}`$.

So we assume that at the optical emission peak time ($`t=50`$ sec) the reverse shock had just passed through the ejecta shell. At this time, the Lorentz factor of the reverse shock $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rs}`$ is approximately given by

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rs}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_A},$$
(7)   
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is the initial Lorentz factor of the ejecta and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A`$ is the Lorentz factor of the ejecta at the optical flash peak time. Then the random minimum Lorentz factor $`\gamma _{min}`$ of the electrons in the reverse shock region is:

$$\gamma _{min}=\frac{m_p}{m_e}\frac{p2}{p1}ϵ_e\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_A},$$
(8)   
The formulas of $`\nu _m`$ at the reverse shock were given by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b). We here add the correction for redshift.

$$\nu _m=1.2\times 10^{13}(\frac{ϵ_e}{0.1})^2(\frac{ϵ_B}{10^3})^{1/2}(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{300})^2n^{1/2}(1+z)^1\mathrm{Hz}5\times 10^{14}\mathrm{Hz}.$$
(9)   
The observed flux at $`\nu _m`$ can be obtained by assuming that all the electrons in the reverse shock region contribute the same average power per unit frequency $`P_{\nu _m}^{}`$ at $`\nu _m`$, which is given by $`P_{\nu _m}^{}=\frac{\sqrt{3}e^3B^{}}{m_ec^2}`$, where $`B^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_Ac\sqrt{32\pi nm_pϵ_B}`$. Adding one factor of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A`$ to transform to the observer frame and accounting for the redshift, we have:

$$F_{\nu _m}=\frac{N_e\mathrm{\Gamma }_AP_{\nu _m}^{}(1+z)}{4\pi d_{L}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}},$$
(10)   
where $`N_e`$ is the total number of radiating electrons in the ejecta shell, and $`d_L=2c(1+z\sqrt{1+z})/H_0`$ is the luminosity distance. Please note that $`N_e`$ here is different from the $`N_e`$ adopted in the forward shock region, which is the total number of swept-up electrons by the forward external shock. We consider $`N_e`$ here to be the total number of electrons contained in the baryonic load:

$$N_e=\frac{M}{m_p}\frac{E_\gamma }{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0m_pc^2}=1.08\times 10^{54}(\frac{E_\gamma }{1.6\times 10^{54}})(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{1000})^1,$$
(11)   
where $`E_\gamma `$ is the total energy in $`\gamma `$-rays. Substituting the expression of $`P_{\nu _m}^{}`$ and $`z=1.6`$ into Eq.(10), we get

$$F_{\nu _m}=0.74(\frac{E_\gamma }{1.6\times 10^{54}})(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{1000})^1(\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_A}{100})^2n^{1/2}(\frac{ϵ_B}{10^3})^{1/2}\mathrm{Jy}.$$
(12)   
Please note that this formula always holds whether the ejecta is jet-like or spherical, because the beaming factor in Eq.(10) and (11) will cancel out each other in the jet-like case. According to the jump condition of the shock, the Lorentz factor of the shocked shell should be approximately equal to that of the shocked ISM (Piran 1999). The Lorentz factor of the forward shocked ISM can be obtained from the standard afterglow model (e. g. Sari, Piran $`\&`$ Narayan 1998):

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,fs}(t)6(\frac{E_{52}}{n})^{1/8}(\frac{t_d}{1+z})^{3/8}$$
(13)   
For $`E_{52}5`$ and $`n0.01`$, we get

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,rs}(50s)=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{A,fs}(50s)=300$$
(14)   
Taking the above inferred value $`ϵ_B3.1\times 10^3`$, from the Eqs.(9), (12), and (14) with the conditions: $`\nu _m5\times 10^{14}`$Hz and $`F_{\nu _m}1`$Jy, we finally get:

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_A=300,\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=1200,ϵ_e0.6.$$
(15)   
Please note that here the value $`ϵ_e0.6`$ inferred from the optical flash data is consistent with that inferred independently from the afterglow information. On the other hand, if we substitute the value $`ϵ_e=0.57`$ into Eq.(9), we find that the peak frequency of the reverse shock $`\nu _m`$ is almost located at the optical band. In addition, our inferred initial Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is six times larger than that obtained by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b), who have used the ambient density $`n`$ of GRB970508. Consequently, at the time the reverse shock has just passed through the ejecta shell, its Lorentz factor was $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rs}=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_A}4`$. This indicates that the reverse shock had become relativistic before it crossed the entire shell. This result is also different from that obtained by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b), who found the Lorentz factor of the reverse shock of GRB990123 was only near one. However we argue that our result is reasonable according to the criterion presented by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1995) (also see Kobayashi et al. 1998). They defined a dimensionless parameter $`\xi `$ constructed from $`l`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$:

$$\xi (l/\mathrm{\Delta })^{1/2}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{4/3},$$
(16)   
where $`l=(\frac{E}{nm_pc^2})^{1/3}`$ is the Sedov length, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=c\delta T`$ is the width of the shell ($`\delta T`$ is the duration of GRB) and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is the initial Lorentz factor of the ejecta. If $`\xi <1`$, the reverse shock becomes relativistic before it crosses the shell; otherwise ($`\xi >1`$), the reverse shock remains Newtonian or at best mildly relativistic during the whole energy extraction process. For GRB990123, we find $`\xi 0.3<1`$. So the reverse shock of GRB990123 had become relativistic before it crossed the shell, consistent with our calculated result.

## 4  Conclusions and Discussions

We have constrained some intrinsic parameters, such as the magnetic energy density fraction ($`ϵ_B`$), the electron energy density fraction ($`ϵ_e`$), the isotropic energy in the adiabatic forward shock $`E_{52}`$ and the ambient density $`n`$. Due to the lack of the value of the self-absorption frequency $`\nu _a`$, we made an assumption that $`ϵ_e`$ of GRB990123 is the same as that of GRB970508, then astonishingly find that the inferred value of $`ϵ_B`$ is also nearly equal to that of GRB970508. This result favours the argument proposed by WG99 that the magnetic energy fraction and the electron density fraction may be universal parameters.

Another two important intrinsic parameters of GRB990123 are also inferred from the optical flash information: the initial Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ and the Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A`$ at the prompt optical emission peak time of the ejecta. They are: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0=1200`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_A=300`$. Our inferred value of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is six times larger than that obtained by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1999b), who used the ambient density $`n`$ inferred for GRB970508. A larger initial Lorentz factor is reasonable in consideration of the huge energy of this burst. The Lorentz factor of the reverse shock at the optical flash peak time is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{rs}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_0}{\mathrm{\Gamma }_A}4`$, which shows that the reverse shock had become relativistic rather than mildly relativistic before it crossed the entire ejecta shell. This result is in agreement with the criterion presented by Sari $`\&`$ Piran (1995) to judge the RRS case or NRS case.

Prompt optical flash has added another dimension to GRB astronomy. Prompt observations in the optical band during and immediately after GRB may provide more and more events of optical flash in the near future, and they will enable us to make more detailed analyses, make more precise determination of intrinsic parameters and test the reverse—forward external shock model.

## Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the referee for his valuable suggestions and improvement on our manuscript. X.Y. Wang also thank Dr. D. M. Wei for helpful discussion. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grants 19773007 and 19825109 and the foundation of Ministry Education of China.