Related papers: iPTF Archival Search for Fast Optical Transients
Dirty fireballs are a hypothesized class of relativistic massive-star explosions with an initial Lorentz factor $\Gamma_\mathrm{init}$ below the $\Gamma_\mathrm{init}\sim100$ required to produce a long-duration gamma-ray burst (LGRB), but…
We report here the discovery by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) of iPTF14yb, a luminous ($M_{r}\approx-27.8$ mag), cosmological (redshift 1.9733), rapidly fading optical transient. We demonstrate, based on probabilistic…
We report the discovery of the optical afterglow of the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 130702A, identified upon searching 71 square degrees surrounding the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) localization. Discovered and characterized by the…
We report the discovery by the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) of the transient source PTF11agg, which is distinguished by three primary characteristics: (1) bright, rapidly fading optical transient emission; (2) a faint, blue quiescent…
We present the results of a search for untriggered gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows with the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment-III (ROTSE-III) telescope array. This search covers observations from September 2003 to March 2005. We…
The detection of x-ray afterglows of gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources has enabled the optical discovery that GRBs are at cosmological distances, which confirms that the enormous luminosities required must produce a relativistically expanding…
We analyze images of the CFHTLS Very Wide Survey to search for visible orphan afterglows from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We have searched 490 square degrees down to magnitude r'=22.5 for visible transients similar to GRB afterglows. We…
A radio source that faded over six days, with a redshift of $z\approx0.5$ host, has been identified by Keane et al. (2016) as the transient afterglow to a fast radio burst (FRB 150418). We report follow-up radio and optical observations of…
We had previously reported on a survey for radio transients, used to set an upper limit on the number of orphan gamma-ray burst (GRB) radio afterglows, and thus a lower limit on the typical GRB beaming factor. Here we report radio and…
While optical surveys regularly discover slow transients like supernovae on their own, the most common way to discover extragalactic fast transients, fading away in a few nights, is via follow-up observations of gamma-ray burst and…
Classical gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have two distinct emission episodes: prompt emission from ultrarelativistic ejecta and afterglow from shocked circumstellar material. While both components are extremely luminous in known GRBs, a variety of…
The typical detection rate of $\sim1$ gamma-ray burst (GRB) per day by the \emph{Fermi} Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) provides a valuable opportunity to further our understanding of GRB physics. However, the large uncertainty of the…
We present detailed, multi-wavelength analysis of GRB 210704A: a Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor discovered and Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detected gamma-ray burst (GRB). The burst is dominated by a short ($\approx 2$ s) pulse followed…
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has greatly expanded the number and energy window of observations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). However, the coarse localizations of tens to a hundred square degrees provided by the Fermi GRB Monitor…
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration radio transients of mysterious origin, with growing evidence linking at least some of them to magnetars. While FRBs are primarily observed in the radio band, their potential multi-wavelength…
Orphan afterglows are transient events that are produced by cosmological fireballs and resemble gamma ray burst (GRB) afterglows, yet are not accompanied by gamma rays. Such transients may be produced by jetlike GRBs observed off-axis, and…
[Abridged] We present a search for fast optical transients (~0.5 hr-1 day) using repeated observations of the Pan-STARRS1 Medium-Deep Survey (PS1/MDS) fields. Our search takes advantage of the consecutive g/r-band observations (16.5 min in…
We present ZTF20aajnksq (AT2020blt), a fast-fading ($\Delta r=2.4$ mag in $\Delta t=1.3$ days) red ($g-r\approx0.6$ mag) and luminous ($M_{1626}=-25.9$) optical transient at $z=2.9$ discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF).…
If Gamma-Ray-Bursts (GRBs) occur at high redshifts, then their bright afterglow emission can be used to probe the ionization and metal enrichment histories of the intervening intergalactic medium during the epoch of reionization. In…
The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) triggers on-board in response to $\sim$ 40 short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) per year; however, their large localization regions have made the search for optical counterparts a challenging endeavour. We…