Constraining gamma-ray burst viewing angles with Swift/XRT afterglow light curves

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic phenomena in the universe, and their afterglow light curves encode information about jet geometry and viewing angle. To constrain GRB viewing angles, we analyzed jet break features in Swift X-Ray Telescope afterglow light curves using two top-hat jet models: a simplified geometric model without high-latitude emission (model 1) and a comprehensive model including it (model 2). Both models were applied to a sample of 20 GRBs in an interstellar medium (ISM) and 20 in a wind medium, selected so that jet breaks are attributed to the edge effect with sufficient data coverage, and fitted with Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. We examined viewing angles and off-axis ratios q = θ obs/θ jet under both density profiles, evaluating the impact of high-latitude emission. Based on reduced chi-squared and Bayesian information criterion comparisons, model 1 fits all GRBs better. Most GRBs have small off-axis ratios (mean q = 0.1851 for model 1), indicating viewing angles generally close to the jet axis; the log-space viewing-angle distribution is approximately Gaussian. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows no significant difference in off-axis ratios between ISM and wind media, nor between bursts with and without an X-ray plateau. While viewing angles decrease significantly with redshift, the off-axis ratio shows no significant evolution, consistent with off-axis alignment being independent of cosmic epoch.