Discovery of the short γ-ray burst GRB 050709
/ Authors
J. Villaseñor, D. Lamb, G. Ricker, J. Atteia, N. Kawai, N. Butler, Y. Nakagawa, J. Jernigan, M. Boer, G. Crew
and 23 more authors
T. Donaghy, J. Doty, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, C. Graziani, K. Hurley, A. Levine, F. Martel, M. Matsuoka, J. Olive, G. Prigozhin, T. Sakamoto, Y. Shirasaki, Motoko Suzuki, T. Tamagawa, R. Vanderspek, S. Woosley, A. Yoshida, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, G. Pizzichini, K. Takagishi, M. Yamauchi
/ Abstract
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) fall into two classes: short-hard and long-soft bursts. The latter are now known to have X-ray and optical afterglows, to occur at cosmological distances in star-forming galaxies, and to be associated with the explosion of massive stars. In contrast, the distance scale, the energy scale and the progenitors of the short bursts have remained a mystery. Here we report the discovery of a short-hard burst whose accurate localization has led to follow-up observations that have identified the X-ray afterglow and (for the first time) the optical afterglow of a short-hard burst; this in turn led to the identification of the host galaxy of the burst as a late-type galaxy at z = 0.16 (ref. 10). These results show that at least some short-hard bursts occur at cosmological distances in the outskirts of galaxies, and are likely to be caused by the merging of compact binaries.
Journal: Nature
DOI: 10.1038/nature04213