The afterglow and elliptical host galaxy of the short big γ-ray burst GRB 050724
Creators
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Berger, E.1
- Price, P. A.2
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Cenko, S. B.
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Gal-Yam, A.3
- Soderberg, A. M.3
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Kasliwal, M. M.3
- Leonard, D. C.3
- Cameron, P. B.3
- Frail, D. A.4
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Kulkarni, S. R.3
- Murphy, D. C.1
- Krzeminski, W.5
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Piran, T.6
- Lee, B. L.7
- Roth, K. C.
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Moon, D. S.
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Fox, D. B.3
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Harrison, F. A.
- Persson, S. E. E.1
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Schmidt, B. P.8
- Penprase, B. E.9
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Rich, J.8
- Peterson, B. A.8
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Cowie, L. L.2
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1.
Carnegie Observatories
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2.
University of Hawaii at Manoa
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3.
California Institute of Technology
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4.
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
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5.
Las Campanas Observatory
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6.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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7.
University of Toronto
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8.
Rett Syndrome Association of Australia
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9.
Pomona College
Abstract
Despite a rich phenomenology, γ-ray bursts (GRBs) are divided1 into two classes based on their duration and spectral hardness—the long-soft and the short-hard bursts. The discovery of afterglow emission from long GRBs was a watershed event, pinpointing their origin to star-forming galaxies, and hence the death of massive stars, and indicating an energy release of about 10^(51) erg. While theoretical arguments suggest that short GRBs are produced in the coalescence of binary compact objects (neutron stars or black holes), the progenitors, energetics and environments of these events remain elusive despite recent localizations. Here we report the discovery of the first radio afterglow from the short burst GRB 050724, which unambiguously associates it with an elliptical galaxy at a redshift z = 0.257. We show that the burst is powered by the same relativistic fireball mechanism as long GRBs, with the ejecta possibly collimated in jets, but that the total energy release is 10–1,000 times smaller. More importantly, the nature of the host galaxy demonstrates that short GRBs arise from an old (> 1 Gyr) stellar population, strengthening earlier suggestions and providing support for coalescing compact object binaries as the progenitors.
Additional Information
© 2005 Nature Publishing Group. Received 3 August; accepted 14 September 2005. We are, as always, indebted to S. Barthelmy and the GCN. GRB research at Carnegie and Caltech is supported in part by funds from NASA. E.B. and A.G.Y. are supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., for NASA. The VLA is operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.Additional details
Identifiers
- Eprint ID
- 56235
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150331-092218774
Funding
- NASA Hubble Fellowship
Dates
- Created
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2015-03-31Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field