Other
Scientific paper
Jul 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009hst..prop12438t&link_type=abstract
HST Proposal ID #12438. Cycle 18
Other
Scientific paper
On Christmas day 2010, Swift detected one of the most unusual gamma-ray bursts {GRBs} ever seen. It apparently persisted for well over 1000s, had an extremely bright, and long lived X-ray afterglow, followed by a remarkably rapid decay, and exhibited an even longer slow decline in its {very blue} optical lightcurve. Recent observations establish a spectroscopic redshift z=0.4, and so GRB 101225 is not a member of the low-luminosity {and hence low-redshift} class as had been suggested. This leads to the natural question of what can produce such an event? Is this a classical GRB from core collapse or an phenomena involving a galactic nucleus {its early lightcurve and optical spectral were reminscent of Blazars}? Could it be an unusual progenitor in a low density medium {e.g. stellar halo}, or a chemically extremely unusual system {e.g. ultra-low metallicity}. Our proposed HST observations will help to directly address these questions. We will i} track the light curve to late times, directly measuring the total energy of the explosions, and searching for any evidence of an associated supernova - a supernova comparable to those seen in many long-GRBs is already ruled out by the ground data, but is of course the key to definitely associating this burst with a core-collapse event; ii} precisely position the afterglow on its host galaxy using the invariant PSF of HST to obtain positions much more accurately than is possible from the ground, this will allow us to ascertain if the burst is coincident with the galactic nucleus with far greater confidence and relate the burst to any star-forming regions; iii} characterize the nature of the host galaxy in comparison with those of other GRBs, and hence provide critical clues to the nature of the progenitor.;
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