Discovery of the short gamma-ray burst GRB 050709

Details Discovery of the short gamma-ray burst GRB 050709 Discovery of the short gamma-ray burst GRB 050709

2005-10-06

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510190v1

Nature 437:855-858,2005

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

19 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Nature

Scientific paper

10.1038/nature04213

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) fall into two classes: short-hard and long-soft bursts. The latter are now known to have X-ray and optical afterglows, to occur at cosmological distances in star-forming galaxies, and to be associated with the explosion of massive stars. In contrast, the distance scale, the energy scale, and the progenitors of short bursts have remained a mystery. Here we report the discovery of a short-hard burst whose accurate localization has led to follow-up observations that have identified the X-ray afterglow and (for the first time) the optical afterglow of a short-hard burst. These, in turn, have led to identification of the host galaxy of the burst as a late-type galaxy at z=0.16 showing that at least some short-hard bursts occur at cosmological distances in the outskirts of galaxies, and are likely to be due to the merging of compact binaries.

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