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A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of high-energy radiation arising from energetic cosmic explosions. Bursts of long (greater than two seconds) duration are produced by the core-collapse of massive stars(1), and those of short (less than two seconds) duration by the merger of compact objects, such...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Troja, E., Fryer, C. L., O’Connor, B., Ryan, G., Dichiara, S., Kumar, A., Ito, N., Gupta, R., Wollaeger, R. T., Norris, J. P., Kawai, N., Butler, N. R., Aryan, A., Misra, K., Hosokawa, R., Murata, K. L., Niwano, M., Pandey, S. B., Kutyrev, A., van Eerten, H. J., Chase, E. A., Hu, Y.-D., Caballero-Garcia, M. D., Castro-Tirado, A. J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9729102/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36477127
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3
Descripción
Sumario:Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of high-energy radiation arising from energetic cosmic explosions. Bursts of long (greater than two seconds) duration are produced by the core-collapse of massive stars(1), and those of short (less than two seconds) duration by the merger of compact objects, such as two neutron stars(2). A third class of events with hybrid high-energy properties was identified(3), but never conclusively linked to a stellar progenitor. The lack of bright supernovae rules out typical core-collapse explosions(4–6), but their distance scales prevent sensitive searches for direct signatures of a progenitor system. Only tentative evidence for a kilonova has been presented(7,8). Here we report observations of the exceptionally bright GRB 211211A, which classify it as a hybrid event and constrain its distance scale to only 346 megaparsecs. Our measurements indicate that its lower-energy (from ultraviolet to near-infrared) counterpart is powered by a luminous (approximately 10(42) erg per second) kilonova possibly formed in the ejecta of a compact object merger.