Three-peak GRBs and their implications for central engines

•We develop a theoretical analytical model for GRBs with three episodes.•We relate these episodes to ms-protomagnetar stage, BH formation and collapsar phase.•We reanalyze the data from GRB 110709B and find them consistent with our model.•We show this burst has two separate lGRB episodes separated by a collapse episode.•We find the two afterglows for these lGRBs are consistent with the fireball model.

GRB 110709B presented a peculiar three-peak lightcurve; this burst twice triggered the BAT detector onboard Swift. The two triggers were separated by ∼10 min. In order to explain such an event, we unify into a single description the millisecond (ms) protomagnetar and the collapsar central-engine models. We find that such a scenario could produce GRBs with three peaks. One for the ms-protomagnetar stage, a second one for the BH-formation event and a third one for the collapsar phase. We show that the three peaks for GRB 110709B originate from different phases of the same collapsing object. We estimate the energies and timescales of the different episodes of this burst using our model and compare with previous results as well as with a reanalysis we perform on the data. We show that not only the light curve, but also the photon index evolution and the delay between the prompt emission and the afterglow of the second central-engine activity phase point toward a model like the one proposed here. We find that, with reasonable assumptions, our model correctly describes the activity in GRB 110709B. We further suggest careful study of future GRBs lightcurves which may help show the validity of our model. If our model is correct, this would be the first time that the formation of a BH from a core-collapse event is observed unimpededly.