The Macronova in GRB 050709 and the GRB-macronova connection.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27659791.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms12898 and PMC identifier 5036160.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
GRB 050709 was the first short Gamma-ray Burst (sGRB) with an identified optical counterpart. Here we report a reanalysis of the publicly available data of this event and the discovery of a Li-Paczynski macronova/kilonova that dominates the optical/infrared signal at t>2.5 days. Such a signal would arise from 0.05 r-process material launched by a compact binary merger. The implied mass ejection supports the suggestion that compact binary mergers are significant and possibly main sites of heavy r-process nucleosynthesis. Furthermore, we have reanalysed all afterglow data from nearby short and hybrid GRBs (shGRBs). A statistical study of shGRB/macronova connection reveals that macronova may have taken place in all these GRBs, although the fraction as low as 0.18 cannot be ruled out. The identification of two of the three macronova candidates in the I-band implies a more promising detection prospect for ground-based surveys.