A lanthanide-rich kilonova in the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst

Yu-Han Yang¹, Eleonora Troja^{2

3}, Brendan O'Connor^{4

5

6}, Chris L Fryer^{7

8

9

10

11}, Myungshin Im¹², Joe Durbak^{5

6}, Gregory S H Paek¹², Roberto Ricci^{13

14}, Clécio R Bom^{15

16}, James H Gillanders¹⁷, Alberto J Castro-Tirado^{18

19}, Zong-Kai Peng^{20

21}, Simone Dichiara²², Geoffrey Ryan²³, Hendrik van Eerten²⁴, Zi-Gao Dai²⁵, Seo-Won Chang¹², Hyeonho Choi¹², Kishalay De²⁶, Youdong Hu¹⁸, Charles D Kilpatrick²⁷, Alexander Kutyrev^{5

6}, Mankeun Jeong¹², Chung-Uk Lee²⁸, Martin Makler^{15

29}, Felipe Navarete³⁰, Ignacio Pérez-García¹⁸

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy. yuhan.yang@roma2.infn.it.
² Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy. eleonora.troja@uniroma2.it.
³ INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Rome, Italy. eleonora.troja@uniroma2.it.
⁴ Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.
⁵ Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁶ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
⁷ Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁸ Center for Theoretical Astrophysics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁹ The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
¹¹ The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.
¹² SNU Astronomy Research Center, Astronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
¹³ Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Turin, Italy.
¹⁴ INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia, Bologna, Italy.
¹⁵ Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
¹⁶ Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Rodovia Mário Covas, Itaguaí, Brazil.
¹⁷ Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy.
¹⁸ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Granada, Spain.
¹⁹ Unidad Asociada al CSIC Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Escuela de Ingenierías Industriales, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
²⁰ Institute for Frontier in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²¹ Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
²³ Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
²⁴ Physics Department, University of Bath, Claverton Down, UK.
²⁵ Department of Astronomy, School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
²⁶ Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²⁷ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
²⁸ Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
²⁹ International Center for Advanced Studies and Instituto de Ciencias Físicas, ECyT-UNSAM and CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³⁰ SOAR Telescope/NSF's NOIRLab, La Serena, Chile.

PMID: 38383623
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06979-5

A lanthanide-rich kilonova in the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst

Yu-Han Yang et al. Nature. 2024 Feb.

. 2024 Feb;626(8000):742-745.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06979-5. Epub 2024 Feb 21.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy. yuhan.yang@roma2.infn.it.
² Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy. eleonora.troja@uniroma2.it.
³ INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Rome, Italy. eleonora.troja@uniroma2.it.
⁴ Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.
⁵ Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁶ Astrophysics Science Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
⁷ Computer, Computational, and Statistical Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁸ Center for Theoretical Astrophysics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁹ The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
¹¹ The George Washington University, Washington DC, USA.
¹² SNU Astronomy Research Center, Astronomy Program, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
¹³ Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica, Turin, Italy.
¹⁴ INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia, Bologna, Italy.
¹⁵ Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
¹⁶ Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Suckow da Fonseca, Rodovia Mário Covas, Itaguaí, Brazil.
¹⁷ Department of Physics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", Rome, Italy.
¹⁸ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Granada, Spain.
¹⁹ Unidad Asociada al CSIC Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Escuela de Ingenierías Industriales, Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
²⁰ Institute for Frontier in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²¹ Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
²³ Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
²⁴ Physics Department, University of Bath, Claverton Down, UK.
²⁵ Department of Astronomy, School of Physical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
²⁶ Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²⁷ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
²⁸ Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
²⁹ International Center for Advanced Studies and Instituto de Ciencias Físicas, ECyT-UNSAM and CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
³⁰ SOAR Telescope/NSF's NOIRLab, La Serena, Chile.

PMID: 38383623
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06979-5

Abstract

Observationally, kilonovae are astrophysical transients powered by the radioactive decay of nuclei heavier than iron, thought to be synthesized in the merger of two compact objects^1-4. Over the first few days, the kilonova evolution is dominated by a large number of radioactive isotopes contributing to the heating rate^2,5. On timescales of weeks to months, its behaviour is predicted to differ depending on the ejecta composition and the merger remnant^6-8. Previous work has shown that the kilonova associated with gamma-ray burst 230307A is similar to kilonova AT2017gfo (ref. ⁹), and mid-infrared spectra revealed an emission line at 2.15 micrometres that was attributed to tellurium. Here we report a multi-wavelength analysis, including publicly available James Webb Space Telescope data⁹ and our own Hubble Space Telescope data, for the same gamma-ray burst. We model its evolution up to two months after the burst and show that, at these late times, the recession of the photospheric radius and the rapidly decaying bolometric luminosity (L_bol ∝ t^-2.7±0.4, where t is time) support the recombination of lanthanide-rich ejecta as they cool.

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References

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1. Barnes, J., Kasen, D., Wu, M.-R. & Martínez-Pinedo, G. Radioactivity and thermalization in the ejecta of compact object mergers and their impact on kilonova light curves. Astrophys. J. 829, 110 (2016). - DOI

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A lanthanide-rich kilonova in the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst

Affiliations

A lanthanide-rich kilonova in the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

References

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources