An enigmatic long-lasting gamma-ray burst not accompanied by a bright supernova
Abstract
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are short, intense flashes of soft gamma-rays coming from the distant Universe. Long-duration GRBs (those lasting more than ~2 s) are believed to originate from the deaths of massive stars, mainly on the basis of a handful of solid associations between GRBs and supernovae. GRB 060614, one of the closest GRBs discovered, consisted of a 5-s hard spike followed by softer, brighter emission that lasted for ~100 s. Here we report deep optical observations of GRB 060614 showing no emerging supernova with absolute visual magnitude brighter than M_V = -13.7. Any supernova associated with GRB 060614 was therefore at least 100 times fainter, at optical wavelengths, than the other supernovae associated with GRBs. This demonstrates that some long-lasting GRBs can either be associated with a very faint supernova or produced by different phenomena.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0608322,
title = {An enigmatic long-lasting gamma-ray burst not accompanied by a bright supernova},
author = {M. Della Valle and G. Chincarini and N. Panagia and G. Tagliaferri and D. Malesani and V. Testa and D. Fugazza and S. Campana and S. Covino and V. Mangano and L. A. Antonelli and P. D'Avanzo and K. Hurley and I. F. Mirabel and L. J. Pellizza and S. Piranomonte and L. Stella},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0608322},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
14 pages, 4 color figures. Final version accepted to Nature. Title and author list updated. Includes supplementary material and one extra color figure for presentations