A peculiar low-luminosity short gamma-ray burst from a double neutron star merger progenitor

B.-B. Zhang (), B. Zhang (), H. Sun, W.-H. Lei, H. Gao, Y. Li, L. Shao, Y. Zhao, Y.-D. Hu, H.-J. Lü, X.-F. Wu, X.-L. Fan, G. Wang, A. J. Castro-Tirado, S. Zhang, B.-Y. Yu, Y.-Y. Cao and E.-W. Liang
Additional contact information
B.-B. Zhang: Nanjing University
B. Zhang: University of Nevada
H. Sun: Chinese Academy of Sciences
W.-H. Lei: Huazhong University of Science and Technology
H. Gao: Beijing Normal University
Y. Li: Peking University
L. Shao: Hebei Normal University
Y. Zhao: University of Florida
Y.-D. Hu: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)
H.-J. Lü: Guangxi University
X.-F. Wu: Chinese Academy of Sciences
X.-L. Fan: Hubei University of Education
G. Wang: Gran Sasso Science Institute (INFN)
A. J. Castro-Tirado: Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC)
S. Zhang: Hebei Normal University
B.-Y. Yu: Hebei Normal University
Y.-Y. Cao: Hebei Normal University
E.-W. Liang: Guangxi University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Double neutron star (DNS) merger events are promising candidates of short gamma-ray burst (sGRB) progenitors as well as high-frequency gravitational wave (GW) emitters. On August 17, 2017, such a coinciding event was detected by both the LIGO-Virgo gravitational wave detector network as GW170817 and Gamma-Ray Monitor on board NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope as GRB 170817A. Here, we show that the fluence and spectral peak energy of this sGRB fall into the lower portion of the distributions of known sGRBs. Its peak isotropic luminosity is abnormally low. The estimated event rate density above this luminosity is at least $$190_{ - 160}^{ + 440}$$ 19 0 - 160 + 440 Gpc−3 yr−1, which is close to but still below the DNS merger event rate density. This event likely originates from a structured jet viewed from a large viewing angle. There are similar faint soft GRBs in the Fermi archival data, a small fraction of which might belong to this new population of nearby, low-luminosity sGRBs.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-02847-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-018-02847-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-02847-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().