THE AFTERGLOWS OF SWIFT-ERA GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. TYPE I GRB VERSUS TYPE II GRB OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS

By D. A. Kann, S. Klose, Bing Zhang, S. Covino, N. Butler, D. Malesani, E. Nakar, A. C. Wilson, L. A. Antonelli, G. Chincarini and 14 more. 2008

194 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been separated into two classes, originally along the lines of duration and spectral properties, called “short/hard” and “long/soft.” The latter have been conclusively linked to the explosive deaths of massive stars, while the former are thought to result from the merger or collapse of compact objects. In recent years, indications have been accumulating that the short/hard versus long/soft division does not map directly onto what would be expected from the two classes of progenitors, leading to a new classification scheme called Type I and Type II which is based on multiple observational criteria. We use a large sample of GRB afterglow and prompt-emission data (adding further GRB afterglow observations in this work) to compare the optical afterglows (or the lack thereof) of Type I GRBs with those of Type II GRBs. In comparison to the afterglows of Type II GRBs, we find that those of Type I GRBs have a lower average luminosity and show an intrinsic spread of luminosities at least as wide. From late and deep upper limits on the optical transients, we establish limits on the maximum optical luminosity of any associated supernova (SN), confirming older works and adding new results. We use deep upper limits on Type I GRB optical afterglows to constrain the parameter space of possible mini-SN emission associated with a compact-object merger. Using the prompt-emission data, we search for correlations between the parameters of the prompt emission and the late optical afterglow luminosities. We find tentative correlations between the bolometric isotropic energy release and the optical afterglow luminosity at a fixed time after the trigger (positive), and between the host offset and the luminosity (negative), but no significant correlation between the isotropic energy release and the duration of the GRBs. We also discuss three anomalous GRBs, GRB 060505, GRB 060614, and GRB 060121, in light of their optical afterglow luminosities.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cbaf6e20d911e2fb85c100059cb35e0c62636512

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. B. Metzger
3. E. Berger
4. E. Nakar
5. T. Piran
6. Xuefeng Wu
7. K. Hotokezaka
8. P. Lasky

Citations in the corpus

• A complete reference of the analytical synchrotron external shock models of gamma-ray bursts (2013, background): “Nonetheless, the data indicate that the low-energy (optical and radio) afterglows (Kann et al., 2010, 2011; Chandra and Frail, 3 2012) and the late-time X-ray afterglow is more likely of the external shock origin.”
• Swift J1112.2−8238: a candidate relativistic tidal disruption flare (2015, unknown): “The optical transient luminosity is comparable with the brightest end of the GRB afterglow distribution (e.g. Kann et al. 2011), although given the X-ray brightness the inferred X-ray to optical spectral slope is very flat (βOX ∼ 0.14).”
• SYSTEMATICS OF DYNAMICAL MASS EJECTION, NUCLEOSYNTHESIS, AND RADIOACTIVELY POWERED ELECTROMAGNETIC SIGNALS FROM NEUTRON-STAR MERGERS (2013, background): “We also refer to Kann et al. (2011) for a report on attempts to detect signatures of a radioactively powered transient in the light curve following a gamma-ray burst.”
• RADIATIVE TRANSFER SIMULATIONS OF NEUTRON STAR MERGER EJECTA (2013, methodology): “The data are corrected and shifted to the z = 0.1 scale by Kann et al. (2011) with an appropriate K correction.”
• A RADIO-SELECTED SAMPLE OF GAMMA-RAY BURST AFTERGLOWS (2011, background): “…(27) Hjorth & Bloom 2011; (28) Connaughton et al. 1997; (29) Smith et al. 1997a; (30) Gandolfi et al. 1999; (31) Jakobsson et al. 2004; (32) Kann et al. 2011; (33) Kann et al. 2010; (34) Kuin et al. 2009; (35) Lazzati et al. 2001; (36) Liang et al. 2007; (37) Nysewander et al. 2009; (38)…”
• The SEDs and host galaxies of the dustiest GRB afterglows (2011, background): “…four of them display a clear 2175 Å dust feature (GRBs 070802, 080605, 080607, 080805), which is with the exception of GRB 080603A (Guidorzi et al. 2011; Kann et al. 2011) the full sample for which a significant detection of this feature has been reported to date (e.g., Zafar et al. 2011).”
• THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, background): “…(Gehrels et al. 2005; Bloom et al. 2006; Barthelmy et al. 2005; Berger et al. 2005), to have a large offset from the center of the host galaxy (e.g. Fox et al. 2005; Fong et al. 2010), and to have no evidence of an associated supernova (Kann et al. 2011, Berger 2014 and references therein).”
• THE OBSERVABLE SIGNATURES OF GRB COCOONS (2016, methodology): “To estimate the luminosity of optical cocoon afterglows we compare it to observed GRB afterglows after 1 day that typically have an absolute optical magnitude in the range −21 to −25 (Kann et al. 2011).”
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2013, background): “For comparison, long GRB afterglows are generally an order of magnitude brighter, with〈mr (7 hr)〉 ≈ 20.8 AB mag (e.g.,Kann et al. 2011), despite their significantly larger redshifts (Figure4).”