Closing in on a short-hard burst progenitor: Constraints from early-time optical imaging and spectroscopy of a possible host galaxy of GRB 050509b

被引:266
作者
Bloom, JS
Prochaska, JX
Pooley, D
Blake, CH
Foley, RJ
Jha, S
Ramirez-Ruiz, E
Granot, J
Filippenko, AV
Sigurdsson, S
Barth, AJ
Chen, HW
Cooper, MC
Falco, EE
Gal, RR
Gerke, BF
Gladders, MD
Greene, JE
Hennanwi, J
Ho, LC
Hurley, K
Koester, BP
Li, W
Lubin, L
Newman, J
Perley, DA
Squires, GK
Wood-Vasey, WM
机构
[1] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Astron, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[2] Univ Calif Santa Cruz, Univ Calif Observ, Lick Observ, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA
[3] Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophys, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
[4] Inst Adv Study, Princeton, NJ 08540 USA
[5] Stanford Univ, KIPAC, Stanford, CA 94309 USA
[6] Penn State Univ, Davey Lab 525, Dept Astron & Astrophys, University Pk, PA 16802 USA
[7] MIT, Ctr Space Res, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
[8] Univ Calif Davis, Dept Phys, Davis, CA 95616 USA
[9] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[10] Observ Carnegie Inst Washington, Pasadena, CA 91101 USA
[11] Univ Calif Berkeley, Space Sci Lab, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[12] Univ Michigan, Dept Phys, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
[13] Univ Calif Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Inst Nucl & Particle Astrophys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[14] CALTECH, Spitzer Sci Ctr, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA
关键词
gamma rays : bursts;
D O I
10.1086/498107
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
The localization of the short-duration, hard-spectrum gamma-ray burst GRB 050509b by the Swift satellite was a watershed event. We report the discovery of the probable host galaxy, a bright elliptical galaxy at z = 0.2248. This is the first known redshift and host of a short-hard GRB and shows that at least some short-hard GRBs are cosmological in origin. We began imaging the GRB field 8 minutes after the burst and continued for 8 days. We present a reanalysis of the XRT afterglow and report the absolute position of the GRB. Based on positional coincidences, the GRB and the elliptical are likely to be physically related, unlike any known connection between a long-duration GRB and an early-type galaxy. Similarly unique, GRB 050509b likely also originated from within a rich cluster of galaxies with detectable diffuse X-ray emission. We demonstrate that while the burst was underluminous, the ratio of the blast wave energy to the gamma-ray energy is consistent with that of long-duration GRBs. Based on this analysis, on the location of the GRB (40 +/- 13 kpc from the putative host), on the galaxy type (elliptical), and the lack of a coincident supernova, we suggest that there is now observational support for the hypothesis that short-hard bursts arise during the merger of a compact binary. We limit the properties of any Li-Paczynski "minisupernova'' that is predicted to arise on similar to 1 day timescales. Other progenitor models are still viable, and new Swift bursts will undoubtedly help to further clarify the progenitor picture.
引用
收藏
页码:354 / 368
页数:15
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