Related papers: GRB 130603B: No Compelling Evidence For Neutron St…
The existence of a secondary (in addition to compact object mergers) source of heavy element ($r$-process) nucleosynthesis, the core-collapse of rapidly-rotating and highly-magnetized massive stars, has been suggested by both simulations…
We report on observations of GRB 080503, a short gamma-ray burst with very bright extended emission (about 30 times the gamma-ray fluence of the initial spike) in conjunction with a thorough comparison to other short Swift events. In spite…
Cosmic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been firmly established as one of the most powerful phenomena in the Universe, releasing electromagnetic energy approaching the rest-mass energy of a neutron star in a few seconds. The two currently…
We show that the peculiar early optical and in particular X-ray afterglow emission of the short duration burst GRB 130603B can be explained by continuous energy injection into the blastwave from a supra-massive magnetar central engine. The…
Keane et al. recently detected a fading radio source following FRB 150418, leading to the identification of a putative host galaxy at $z = 0.492 \pm 0.008$. Assuming that the fading source is the afterglow of FRB 150418, I model the…
Growing evidence connects the progenitor systems of the short-hard subclass of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to the merger of compact object binaries composed by two neutron stars (NSs) or by a NS and a black hole (BH). The recent observation of…
Optical and near-infrared observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 031203, at z = 0.1055, are reported. A very faint afterglow is detected superimposed to the host galaxy in our first infrared JHK observations, carried out ~9 hours after the…
Observations of gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows have yielded tantalizing hints that supernovae (SNe) and GRBs are related. The case had been circumstantial, though, relying on irregularities in the light curve or the colors of the…
We report on the detection of an emission line near 1.3 keV, which we associate with blue-shifted hydrogen-like sulfur (S XVI), in a 76.8 ksec Chandra HETGS spectrum of the afterglow of GRB 020813. The line is detected at 3.3 sigma…
Recent observations indicate that in a large fraction of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers a long-lived neutron star (NS) may be formed rather than a black hole. Unambiguous electromagnetic (EM) signatures of such a scenario would strongly…
Very recently, the gravitational-wave (GW) event GW170817 was discovered to be associated with the short gamma-ray burst (GRB) 170817A. Multi-wavelength follow-up observations were carried out, and X-ray, optical, and radio counterparts to…
We present multiwavelength (optical/near infrared/millimetre) observations of a short duration gamma-ray burst detected by Swift (GRB 050509b) collected between 0 seconds and ~18.8 days after the event. No optical, near infrared or…
The temporal behavior of the very dim optical afterglow of GRB 080503 is at odds with the regular forward shock afterglow model and a sole kilonova component responsible for optical emission has been speculated in some literature. Here we…
GW170817 is the first binary neutron star merger detected with gravitational and electromagnetic waves, and its afterglow is still detectable 7 years post-merger. Some previous studies of the X-ray afterglow have claimed the onset of a new…
We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the exceptionally bright and luminous Swift gamma-ray burst, GRB 130427A. At z=0.34 this burst affords an excellent opportunity to study the supernova and host galaxy associated with…
We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) photometry of the bright afterglow of GRB 020813. Our data span from 3 hours to 4 days after the GRB event. A rather sharp achromatic break is present in the light curve, 14 hours after the…
Strong, delayed X-ray line emission is detected in the afterglow of GRB 030227, appearing near the end of the XMM-Newton observation, nearly twenty hours after the burst. The observed flux in the lines, not simply the equivalent width,…
We report our observation of the short GRB 170817A, associated to the binary neutron star merger event GW 170817, perfomed in the X-ray band with XMM-Newton 135 d after the event (on the 29th December 2017). We find evidence for a…
We present a multiwavelength study of GRB 151027A. This is the 999th GRB detected by the Swift satellite and it has a densely sampled emission in the X-ray and optical band and has been observed and detected in the radio up to 140 days…
Recent observations suggest that the long-duration gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows are produced by highly relativistic jets emitted in supernova explosions. We propose that the result of the event is not just a compact object…