1998ApJ...507..300K

I consider the case of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) occurring in or near an extended dust-rich region in a galaxy. Part of the dust located many parsecs away from the GRB source shall survive the explosion for some time and affect the propagation of the soft X-rays of the burst and its afterglow to the observer by scattering. Since scattered radiation arrives at the observer with a time delay, I investigate here whether this could result in a detectable excess of soft X-rays in the GRB afterglow some hours after the explosion. If detected, this excess could be direct evidence for a dust-rich environment of the burster, as is suggested by Paczy{nacute}ski's recent hypernova model of GRBs.