Delayed X-ray afterglows from obscured gamma-ray bursts in star-forming regions

For gamma-ray bursts occurring in dense star-forming regions, the X-ray afterglow behavior minutes to days after the trigger may be dominated by the small-angle scattering of the prompt X-ray emission off dust grains. We give a simple illustrative model for the X-ray light curves at different X-ray energies and discuss possible implications. A bump followed by a steeper decay in soft X-rays is predicted for bursts that are heavily obscured in the optical.