English

Different progenitors of short hard gamma-ray bursts

Astrophysics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We consider the spatial offsets of short hard gamma-ray bursts (SHBs) from their host galaxies. We show that all SHBs with extended duration soft emission components lie very close to their hosts. We suggest that NS-BH binary mergers offer a natural explanation for the properties of this extended duration/low offset group. SHBs with large offsets have no observed extended emission components and are less likely to have an optically detected afterglow, properties consistent with NS-NS binary mergers occurring in low density environments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0711.3034,
  title  = {Different progenitors of short hard gamma-ray bursts},
  author = {Eleonora Troja and Andrew R. King and Paul T. O'Brien and Nicola Lyons and Giancarlo Cusumano},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0711.3034},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS