GRB 080503: IMPLICATIONS OF A NAKED SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURST DOMINATED BY EXTENDED EMISSION

By D. Perley, B. Metzger, J. Granot, N. Butler, T. Sakamoto, E. Ramirez-Ruiz, A. Levan, Joshua S. Bloom, A. A. Miller, A. Bunker and 15 more. 2008

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We report on observations of GRB 080503, a short gamma-ray burst (GRB) with very bright extended emission (about 30 times the gamma-ray fluence of the initial spike) in conjunction with a thorough comparison to other short Swift events. In spite of the prompt-emission brightness, however, the optical counterpart is extraordinarily faint, never exceeding 25 mag in deep observations starting at ∼1 hr after the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) trigger. The optical brightness peaks at ∼1 day and then falls sharply in a manner similar to the predictions of Li & Paczyński (1998) for supernova-like emission following compact binary mergers. However, a shallow spectral index and similar evolution in X-rays inferred from Chandra observations are more consistent with an afterglow interpretation. The extreme faintness of this probable afterglow relative to the bright gamma-ray emission argues for a very low density medium surrounding the burst (a “naked” GRB), consistent with the lack of a coincident host galaxy down to 28.5 mag in deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging. The late optical and X-ray peak could be explained by a slightly off-axis jet or by a refreshed shock. Our observations reinforce the notion that short GRBs generally occur outside regions of active star formation, but demonstrate that in some cases the luminosity of the extended prompt emission can greatly exceed that of the short spike, which may constrain theoretical interpretation of this class of events. This extended emission is not the onset of an afterglow, and its relative brightness is probably either a viewing-angle effect or intrinsic to the central engine itself. Because most previous BAT short bursts without observed extended emission are too faint for this signature to have been detectable even if it were present at typical level, conclusions based solely on the observed presence or absence of extended emission in the existing Swift sample are premature.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5c45a096b33950b0efa7e42affbbe8e6d5dca911

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Citations in the corpus

THE LOCATIONS OF SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS AS EVIDENCE FOR COMPACT OBJECT BINARY PROGENITORS (2013, background): “Overall, these probability of chance coincidence results agree with those in the literature (Perley et al. 2009; Berger 2010; Rowlinson et al. 2010b), and provide deep NIR limits of & 26.2 mag for bursts which lack hosts at δR .few arcsec.”
AN r-PROCESS KILONOVA ASSOCIATED WITH THE SHORT-HARD GRB 130603B (2013, background): “In recent years there have been a few unsuccessful searches for a kilonova signature in short GRBs (Bloom et al. 2006; Perley et al. 2009; Kocevski et al. 2010), but these were focused in the optical band, which current models show to be strongly suppressed (Barnes & Kasen 2013).”
The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, background): “There have been a handful of observational searches for KN emission: GRB 050709 [424, 425]; GRB 051221A [426]; GRB 060614 [396, 427]; GRB 070724A [428, 429]; GRB 080503 [430, 431]; GRB 080905A [432]; and GRB 130603B [395, 433].”
RADIATIVE TRANSFER SIMULATIONS OF NEUTRON STAR MERGER EJECTA (2013, background): “Although extensive searches have been performed for relatively nearby short GRBs, no such extra component has been detected (e.g., Fox et al. 2005; Hjorth et al. 2005b, 2005a; Perley et al. 2009; Rowlinson et al. 2010; Kocevski et al. 2010).”
The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. V. Rising X-Ray Emission from an Off-axis Jet (2017, background): “Short GRBs are sometimes accompanied by late-time X-ray emission (e.g., Perley et al. 2009; Margutti et al. 2011; Fong et al. 2014), which may originate from a long-lived central engine, such as an accreting black hole (e.g., Perna et al. 2006) or a millisecond magnetar (e.g., Metzger et al. 2008).”
The multimessenger picture of compact object encounters: binary mergers versus dynamical collisions (2012, background): “Some Swift sGRBs are accompanied by a phase of extended X-ray emission that lasts between ∼10 and 100 s (Norris & Gehrels 2008; Perley et al. 2009) and whose fluence can exceed that of the GRB itself.”
THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, background): “Such EE typically has lower peak flux than the initial spike, but it can last for tens of seconds (e.g. Perley et al. 2009).”
A DECADE OF SHORT-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURST BROADBAND AFTERGLOWS: ENERGETICS, CIRCUMBURST DENSITIES, AND JET OPENING ANGLES (2015, background): “For long GRBs, inferred values ofAhostV ≈ 0.5 mag are common, with a substantial fraction of events withAhostV & 1− 2.5 mag (Cenko et al. 2009; Perley et al. 2009a, 2013).”
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURST HOST GALAXIES: MORPHOLOGIES, OFFSETS, AND LOCAL ENVIRONMENTS (2009, background): “These programs targeted all short GRBs with optical and X-ray (XRT) positions from May 2005 to December 2006, 3 We do not repeat the analysis for GRB 080503 since no convincig host galaxy was identified (Perley et al. 2009).”
MASTER Optical Detection of the First LIGO/Virgo Neutron Star Binary Merger GW170817 (2017, background): “Let us now compare the observed optical luminosity with the optical luminosities of other possible kilonovae observed earlier, namely for GRB 130603B (Tanvir et al. 2013) and GRB 080503 (Perley et al. 2009; see Table 2).”
Electromagnetic counterparts of compact object mergers powered by the radioactive decay of r‐process nuclei (2010, background): “Perhaps the most promising candidate kilonova detection to date was following GRB 080503, which showed an unusual rise in its optical afterglow light curve at t ∼ 1 day before rapidly fading over the next several days (Perley et al. 2009).”
WHAT IS THE MOST PROMISING ELECTROMAGNETIC COUNTERPART OF A NEUTRON STAR BINARY MERGER? (2011, background): “A mystery associated with SGRBs is that ∼ 1/4 − 1/2 are followed by variable X-ray emission with a fluence comparable to, or in excess of the initial burst (e.g., Norris & Bonnell 2006; Perley et al. 2009).”
The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts (2014, background): “Lasting a few hundred seconds following the initial burst, these features are either extremely bright (up to 30 times the fluence of the prompt emission; Perley et al. 2009) and variable on time-scales comparable to prompt emission variability, or smoothly decaying plateaus (Rowlinson et al. 2013).”
DISCERNING THE PHYSICAL ORIGINS OF COSMOLOGICAL GAMMA-RAY BURSTS BASED ON MULTIPLE OBSERVATIONAL CRITERIA: THE CASES OF z = 6.7 GRB 080913, z = 8.2 GRB 090423, AND SOME SHORT/HARD GRBs (2009, background): “There are faint galaxies nearby, but one cannot make firm statements regarding their association with the GRB (Perley et al. 2009).”
Kilonova light curves from the disc wind outflows of compact object mergers (2014, background): “The closed circles show r-band observations of the possible kilonova following GRB 080503 (Perley et al. 2009).”
Optical and X-ray emission from stable millisecond magnetars formed from the merger of binary neutron stars (2013, background): “This event showed an unusual rise in its afterglow light curve att ∼ 1 day, before fading over the next several days (Perley et al. 2009).”
The unusual X-ray emission of the short Swift GRB 090515: evidence for the formation of a magnetar? (2010, background): “We also show the optical light curve for GRB 080503 (a short burst with extended emission Perley et al. 2009a) in Fig.”