The signature of supernova ejecta in the X-ray afterglow of the γ-ray burst 011211

By J. Reeves, D. Watson, J. Osborne, K. Pounds, P. O’Brien, A. Short, M. Turner, Mike Watson, K. Mason, M. Ehle and 5 more. Nature, 2002

164 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Now that γ-ray bursts (GRBs) have been determined to lie at cosmological distances, their isotropic burst energies are estimated to be as high as 1054 erg (ref. 2), making them the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. The nature of the progenitors responsible for the bursts remains, however, elusive. The favoured models range from the merger of two neutron stars in a binary system to the collapse of a massive star. Spectroscopic studies of the afterglow emission could reveal details of the environment of the burst, by indicating the elements present, the speed of the outflow and an estimate of the temperature. Here we report an X-ray spectrum of the afterglow of GRB011211, which shows emission lines of magnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon, calcium and possibly nickel, arising in metal-enriched material with an outflow velocity of the order of one-tenth the speed of light. These observations strongly favour models where a supernova explosion from a massive stellar progenitor precedes the burst event and is responsible for the outflowing matter.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/bc10037a0fbebdd9493cc42471c32a7e370a899d

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. Pawan Kumar
3. E. Liang
4. T. Piran
5. E. Berger
6. Stan Woosley
7. B. Metzger
8. P. Mészáros

Citations in the corpus

• The physics of gamma-ray bursts (2004, background): “However, there is also a radiative-recombinationcontinuum line edge, as well as Ka lines of lighter elements like Si, S, Ar, and Ca sall seen in the afterglow of GRB 011211; Reeves et al., 2002d.”
• Variabilities of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows: Long-acting Engine, Anisotropic Jet, or Many Fluctuating Regions? (2004, background): “Interestingly, this scenario may easily produce metal features (Rees & Mészáros 2000) and the metal emission lines are indeed observed in the X-ray afterglow of GRB 011211 (Reeves et al. 2002).”
• Quark Deconfinement and Implications for the Radius and the Limiting Mass of Compact Stars (2004, background): “In the case of GRB 020813 the supernova event has been estimated (Butler et al. 2003) to have occurred a few months before the GRB, while in the case of GRB 011211, about 4 days before the burst (Reeves et al. 2002).”
• Gamma-Ray Bursts from Delayed Collapse of Neutron Stars to Quark Matter Stars (2002, background): “Reeves et al. (2002), to explain the multiple emission features observed in the afterglow spectrum of GRB011211 (time duration of ∼ 270 s, isotropic gamma–ray energy of 5 × 1052 erg), invoke a SN explosion preceding the GRB event by ∼ 4 days (in the isotropic limit, a minimum of 10 hrs).”
• Gamma Ray Bursts in the Afterglow Era (2003, background): “Recently also thermal models have been found to better fit the X-ray afterglow spectra of a few GRBs observed with the XMM–Newton and Chandra X-ray satellites: GRB 001025A (Watson et al. 2002), GRB 011211 (Reeves et al. 2002, Reeves et al. 2003), and GRB 020813 (Butler et al. 2003).”
• The afterglow of GRB 021004: surfing on density waves (2002, background): “This possibility was also suggested to account for the possible detections of X-ray lines (Piro et al. 1999, 2000; Antonelli et al. 2000; Reeves et al. 2002) in the early XA of several GRBs.”
• A Systematic Analysis of Supernova Light in Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows (2003, background): “If the X-ray lines seen in some afterglows (e.g., Reeves et al. 2002) have their origin in the circumburster medium (e.g., Lazzati et al. 2001a) and not in the exploding star (e.g., Mészáros & Rees 2001), this would be difficult to reconcile with the interpretation of a late-time bump with an…”
• Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era (2009, unknown): “These included BeppoSAX observations of GRB 970508 (Piro et al. 1999) and GRB 000214 (Antonelli et al. 2000), ASCA observations of GRB 970828 (Yoshida et al. 1999), Chandra observations of GRB 991216 (Piro et al. 2000) and XMM observations of GRB 011211 (Reeves et al. 2002).”
• The Supernova Gamma-Ray Burst Connection (2006, methodology): “Lines from various elements have been reported in the afterglows of at least seven GRBs using a variety of instruments (e.g., Piro et al., 2000; Reeves et al., 2002; Piran, 2005, and references therein).”
• The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission (2004, background): “…pc) environment by the initial burst is expected to cause time varying optical, UV and X-ray lines and edges within the first hour (Perna & Loeb 1998; Mészáros & Rees 1998), evolving at later times to give abundance information on the circumstellar medium (Reeves et al. 2002; Butler et al. 2003).”
• Swift Identification of Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts (2004, background): “The former could be due to high redshift or obscuration, while the latter could be caused by X-ray emission lines (e.g., Reeves et al. 2002) or thermal emission.”
• Stellar and wind properties of LMC WC4 stars A metallicity dependence for Wolf-Rayet mass-loss rates ? (2002, background): “Recent XMM-Newton observations of GRB 011211 by Reeves et al. (2002) provides further support for such an origin due to enriched Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca and Ni in the X-ray afterglow.”
• Implications of the Lag-Luminosity Relationship for Unified Gamma-Ray Burst Paradigms (2002, background): “The lines are consistent with SN ejecta and along with certain assumptions yield an SN core-collapse time 4 days prior to the GRB (Reeves et al. 2002).”