The optical afterglow of the short γ-ray burst GRB 050709

By J. Hjorth, D. Watson, Johan Peter Uldall Fynbo, P. Price, B. Jensen, U. Jørgensen, D. Kubas, J. Gorosabel, P. Jakobsson, J. Sollerman and 2 more. Nature, 2005

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It has long been known that there are two classes of γ-ray bursts (GRBs), mainly distinguished by their durations. The breakthrough in our understanding of long-duration GRBs (those lasting more than ∼2 s), which ultimately linked them with energetic type Ic supernovae, came from the discovery of their long-lived X-ray and optical ‘afterglows’, when precise and rapid localizations of the sources could finally be obtained. X-ray localizations have recently become available for short (duration <2 s) GRBs, which have evaded optical detection for more than 30 years. Here we report the first discovery of transient optical emission (R-band magnitude ∼23) associated with a short burst: GRB 050709. The optical afterglow was localized with subarcsecond accuracy, and lies in the outskirts of a blue dwarf galaxy. The optical and X-ray afterglow properties 34 h after the GRB are reminiscent of the afterglows of long GRBs, which are attributable to synchrotron emission from ultrarelativistic ejecta. We did not, however, detect a supernova, as found in most nearby long GRB afterglows, which suggests a different origin for the short GRBs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0294921a941cdb3614f2a1b13f0353f9fed9a973

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. E. Berger
3. B. Metzger
4. E. Quataert
5. E. Nakar
6. D. Kasen
7. Pawan Kumar
8. T. Thompson

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