GRB 011121: A Massive Star Progenitor
Abstract
Of the cosmological gamma-ray bursts, GRB 011121 has the lowest redshift, z=0.36. More importantly, the multi-color excess in the afterglow detected in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) light curves is compelling observational evidence for an underlying supernova. Here we present near-infrared and radio observations of the afterglow. We undertake a comprehensive modeling of these observations and those reported in the literature and find good evidence favoring a wind-fed circumburst medium. In detail, we infer the progenitor had a mass loss rate of Mdot ~ 10^-7 / v_w3 Mo/yr where v_w3 is the speed of the wind from the progenitor in units of 10^3 km/s. This mass loss rate is similar to that inferred for the progenitor of SN 1998bw which has been associated with GRB 980425. Our data, taken in conjunction with the HST results of Bloom et al. (2002), provide a consistent picture: the long duration GRB 011121 had a massive star progenitor which exploded as a supernova at about the same time as the GRB event.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0203467,
title = {GRB 011121: A Massive Star Progenitor},
author = {P. A. Price and E. Berger and D. E. Reichart and S. R. Kulkarni and R. Subrahmanyan and R. M. Wark and M. H. Wieringa and D. A. Frail and J. Bailey and B. Boyle and E. Corbett and K. Gunn and S. D. Ryder and N. Seymour and K. Koviak and P. McCarthy and M. Phillips and T. S. Axelrod and J. S. Bloom and S. G. Djorgovski and D. W. Fox and T. J. Galama and F. A. Harrison and K. Hurley and R. Sari and B. P. Schmidt and S. A. Yost and M. J. I. Brown and T. Cline and F. Frontera and C. Guidorzi and E. Montanari},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0203467},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
17 pages, 3 figures. Submitted to ApJ Letters