Long Gamma-Ray Bursts without Visible Supernovae: A Case Study of Redshift Estimators and Alleged Novel Objects

It has been argued that the observational limits on a supernova (SN) associated with GRB 060614 convincingly exclude a SN akin to SN 1998bw as its originator and provide evidence for a new class of long-duration GRBs. We discuss this issue in the contexts of indirect "redshift estimators" and of the fireball and cannonball models of GRBs. The latter explains the unusual properties of GRB 060614: at its debated but favored low redshift (0.125), they are predicted, as opposed to exceptional, if the associated core-collapse SN is of a recently discovered, very faint type. We take the occasion to discuss the association between GRBs and SNe.