A luminous blue kilonova and an off-axis jet from a compact binary merger at z = 0.1341

E. Troja (), G. Ryan, L. Piro, H. Eerten, S. B. Cenko, Y. Yoon, S.-K. Lee, M. Im, T. Sakamoto, P. Gatkine, A. Kutyrev and S. Veilleux
Additional contact information
E. Troja: University of Maryland
G. Ryan: University of Maryland
L. Piro: INAF, Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali
H. Eerten: University of Bath, Claverton Down
S. B. Cenko: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Y. Yoon: Seoul National University
S.-K. Lee: Seoul National University
M. Im: Seoul National University
T. Sakamoto: Aoyama Gakuin University
P. Gatkine: University of Maryland
A. Kutyrev: University of Maryland
S. Veilleux: University of Maryland

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract The recent discovery of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) coincident with the gravitational-wave (GW) event GW170817 revealed the existence of a population of low-luminosity short duration gamma-ray transients produced by neutron star mergers in the nearby Universe. These events could be routinely detected by existing gamma-ray monitors, yet previous observations failed to identify them without the aid of GW triggers. Here we show that GRB150101B is an analogue of GRB170817A located at a cosmological distance. GRB150101B is a faint short burst characterized by a bright optical counterpart and a long-lived X-ray afterglow. These properties are unusual for standard short GRBs and are instead consistent with an explosion viewed off-axis: the optical light is produced by a luminous kilonova, while the observed X-rays trace the GRB afterglow viewed at an angle of ~13°. Our findings suggest that these properties could be common among future electromagnetic counterparts of GW sources.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06558-7

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