The decay of optical emission from the γ-ray burst GRB970228

Titus Galama, P. J. Groot, J. van Paradijs, C. Kouveliotou, C. Robinson, G. J. Fishman, C. A. Meegan, K. C. Sahu, M. Livio, L. Petro, F. D. Macchetto, J. Heise, J. in't Zand, R. G. Strom, J. Telting, R. G. M. Rutten, M. Pettini, N. Tanvir and J. Bloom
Additional contact information
P. J. Groot: University of Amsterdam
J. van Paradijs: University of Amsterdam
C. Kouveliotou: Universities Space Research Association
C. Robinson: Universities Space Research Association
G. J. Fishman: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
C. A. Meegan: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
K. C. Sahu: Space Telescope Science Institute
M. Livio: Space Telescope Science Institute
L. Petro: Space Telescope Science Institute
F. D. Macchetto: Space Telescope Science Institute
J. Heise: SRON Laboratory for Space Research
J. in't Zand: SRON Laboratory for Space Research
R. G. Strom: University of Amsterdam
J. Telting: Isaac Newton Group
R. G. M. Rutten: Isaac Newton Group
M. Pettini: Royal Greenwich Observatory
N. Tanvir: Institute of Astronomy
J. Bloom: Institute of Astronomy

Nature, 1997, vol. 387, issue 6632, 479-481

Abstract: Abstract The origin of γ-ray bursts has been one of the great unsolved mysteries in high-energy astrophysics for almost 30 years. The recent discovery of fading sources at X-ray1 and optical 2,3 wavelengths coincident with the location of the γ-ray burst GRB970228 therefore provides an unprecedented opportunity to probe the nature of these high-energy events. The optical counterpart appears to be a transient point source embedded in a region of extended nebulosity 3–6, the latter having been tentatively identified as a high-redshift galaxy3. This would seem to favour models that place γ-ray bursts at cosmological distances, although a range of mechanisms for producing the bursts is still allowed. A crucial piece of information for distinguishing between such models is how the brightness of the optical counterpart evolves with time. Here we re-evaluate the existing photometry of the optical counterpart of GRB970228 to construct an optical light curve for the transient event. We find that between 21 hours and six days after the burst, the R-band brightness decreased by a factor of ∼40, with any subsequent decrease in brightness occurring at a much slower rate. As the point source faded, it also became redder. The initial behaviour of the source appears to be consistent with the 'fireball' model7, but the subsequent decrease in the rate of fading may prove harder to explain.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/387479a0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:387:y:1997:i:6632:d:10.1038_387479a0

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

DOI: 10.1038/387479a0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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