학술논문
A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects
Document Type
Working Paper
Author
Troja, E.; Fryer, C. L.; O'Connor, B.; Ryan, G.; Dichiara, S.; Kumar, A.; Ito, N.; Gupta, R.; Wollaeger, R.; Norris, J. P.; Kawai, N.; Butler, N.; Aryan, A.; Misra, K.; Hosokawa, R.; Murata, K. L.; Niwano, M.; Pandey, S. B.; Kutyrev, A.; van Eerten, H. J.; Chase, E. A.; Hu, Y. -D.; Caballero-Garcia, M. D.; Castro-Tirado, A. J.
Source
Nature, volume 612, pages 228-231 (2022)
Subject
Language
Abstract
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of high-energy radiation arising from energetic cosmic explosions. Bursts of long (>2 s) duration are produced by the core-collapse of massive stars, those of short (< 2 s) duration by the merger of two neutron stars (NSs). A third class of events with hybrid high-energy properties was identified, but never conclusively linked to a stellar progenitor. The lack of bright supernovae rules out typical core-collapse explosions, but their distance scales prevent sensitive searches for direct signatures of a progenitor system. Only tentative evidence for a kilonova has been presented. Here we report observations of the exceptionally bright GRB211211A that classify it as a hybrid event and constrain its distance scale to only 346 Mpc. Our measurements indicate that its lower-energy (from ultraviolet to near-infrared) counterpart is powered by a luminous (~1E42 erg/s) kilonova possibly formed in the ejecta of a compact binary merger.
Comment: final version, including supplementary methods
Comment: final version, including supplementary methods