A novel explosive process is required for the γ-ray burst GRB 060614

By A. Gal-yam, D. Fox, P. Price, Eran Ofek, M. Davis, D. Leonard, A. Soderberg, B. Schmidt, K. Lewis, B. Peterson and 16 more. Nature, 2006

321 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Over the past decade, our physical understanding of γ-ray bursts (GRBs) has progressed rapidly, thanks to the discovery and observation of their long-lived afterglow emission. Long-duration (≳2 s) GRBs are associated with the explosive deaths of massive stars (‘collapsars’, ref. 1), which produce accompanying supernovae; the short-duration (≲2 s) GRBs have a different origin, which has been argued to be the merger of two compact objects. Here we report optical observations of GRB 060614 (duration ∼100 s, ref. 10) that rule out the presence of an associated supernova. This would seem to require a new explosive process: either a massive collapsar that powers a GRB without any associated supernova, or a new type of ‘engine’, as long-lived as the collapsar but without a massive star. We also show that the properties of the host galaxy (redshift z = 0.125) distinguish it from other long-duration GRB hosts and suggest that an entirely new type of GRB progenitor may be required.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fead558673621e5a20246b73699285248986a167

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

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

Citations in the corpus

• 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): “As a result, at least some Type I GRBs should preferentially reside in the regions with relatively low SSFR in the star forming host galaxy.”
• The Proto-Magnetar Model for Gamma-Ray Bursts (2010, background): “…mysteries associated with shortduration GRBs is that ∼> 1/4 are followed by a ‘tail’ of emission (usually soft X-rays) starting ∼ 10 seconds after the GRB and lasting for ∼ 30− 100 seconds (Norris & Bonnell 2006; Gehrels et al. 2006; Gal-Yam et al. 2006; Perley et al. 2009; Norris et al. 2010).”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. III. Jet Break Candidates in X-Ray and Optical Afterglow Light Curves (2007, background): “However, the apparently long duration suggests that it may be from a new type of collapsarwith a small amount of 56Ni ejection (Fynbo et al. 2006;DellaValle et al. 2006; Gal-Yam et al. 2006; King et al. 2007; Tominaga et al. 2007).”
• Short-duration gamma-ray bursts with extended emission from protomagnetar spin-down (2007, background): “The hybrid long/short properties of GRB060614 led Gal-Yam et al. (2006) and Gehrels et al. (2006) to propose that it forms the prototype for a new class of GRBs, which we call “short GRBs with extended emission” (or SGRBEEs) (see, however, Fynbo et al. 2006).”
• THE LIGHT CURVE OF THE MACRONOVA ASSOCIATED WITH THE LONG–SHORT BURST GRB 060614 (2015, background): “…re-analysis of the late time optical afterglow data (Yang et al. 2015; Y15 hereafter) of the peculiar event GRB 060614 that shares some properties of both long-duration and short-duration GRBs (Gehrels et al. 2006; Fynbo et al. 2006; Della Valle et al. 2006; Gal-Yam et al. 2006; Zhang et al. 2007).”
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2013, background): “…bursts are GRBs 060505 and 060614, with durations of 4 and 102 s, respectively, low redshifts of 0.089 and 0.125, and yet no supernova associations to limitsof about 6− 7 mag fainter than typical long GRB-SNe (Della Valle et al. 2006, Fynbo et al. 2006, Gal-Yam et al. 2006, Gehrels et al. 2006).”
• Low-Luminosity Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Unique Population: Luminosity Function, Local Rate, and Beaming Factor (2006, background): “We have excluded GRBs 060505 and 060614 from our sample since they are suggested to be classified as a new type of GRBs (Gehrels et al. 2006; Gal-Yam et al. 2006; Fynbo et al. 2006; Della Valle et al. 2006) or to belong to the short GRB group (Zhang et al. 2007a; Zhang 2006).”
• Making a Short Gamma-Ray Burst from a Long One: Implications for the Nature of GRB 060614 (2006, background): “The lower-than-normal star-forming rate of the host galaxy and its large offset from the bright UV regions (Gal-Yam et al. 2006) is also consistent with such a picture.”
• GRB 080503: IMPLICATIONS OF A NAKED SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURST DOMINATED BY EXTENDED EMISSION (2008, background): “To further complicate the picture, long GRB 060614 exploded in a very low-SFR dwarf galaxy at z = 0.125 and despite an intensive follow-up campaign showed no evidence for a supernova, even if extremely underluminous (MV > −12.3, Gal-Yam et al. 2006).”
• On the Rates of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Type Ib/c Supernovae (2006, background): “This GRB/SN association applies to a fraction of long GRBs, but not all (Della Valle et al. 2006a; Fynbo et al. 2006; Gal-Yam et al. 2006).”
• THE AFTERGLOWS OF SWIFT-ERA GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. TYPE I GRB VERSUS TYPE II GRB OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS (2008, methodology): “…2006b) due to the quite large offset from its host galaxy in terms of half-light radius or brightest pixel distribution (Gal-Yam et al. 2006), but this is based on a posteriori statistics, Gal-Yam et al. (2006) use HST imaging to determine a very low probability (6 × 10−6) of a chance association.”
• LOW-RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY OF GAMMA-RAY BURST OPTICAL AFTERGLOWS: BIASES IN THE SWIFT SAMPLE AND CHARACTERIZATION OF THE ABSORBERS (2009, unknown): “2006, Gal-Yam et al. 2006).”
• Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era (2007, background): “…limit to the burst redshift to be lower than 1 (Gehrels et al. 2006), which rulesout the higher redshifts suggested by those authors. times fainter than other SNe associated with long GRBs, and is fainter than any SN ever observed (Gal-Yam et al. 2006; Fynbo et al. 2006a; Della Valle et al. 2006b).”