The energetic afterglow of the γ-ray burst of 14 December 1997

A. N. Ramaprakash, S. R. Kulkarni (), D. A. Frail, C. Koresko, M. Kuchner, R. Goodrich, G. Neugebauer, T. Murphy, S. Eikenberry, J. S. Bloom, S. G. Djorgovski, E. Waxman, F. Frontera, M. Feroci and L. Nicastro
Additional contact information
A. N. Ramaprakash: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
S. R. Kulkarni: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
D. A. Frail: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
C. Koresko: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
M. Kuchner: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
R. Goodrich: W. M. Keck Observatory, 65-1120 Mamalahoa Highway
G. Neugebauer: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
T. Murphy: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
S. Eikenberry: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
J. S. Bloom: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
S. G. Djorgovski: Palomar Observatory 105-24, California Institute of Technology
E. Waxman: Institute for Advanced Study
F. Frontera: Istituto Tecn. Studio Rad. Extraterrestri, CNR, via Gobetti 101
M. Feroci: Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale, CNR, via Fosso del Cavaliere
L. Nicastro: Istituto Fisica Cosmica App. Info., CNR, via U. La Malfa 153

Nature, 1998, vol. 393, issue 6680, 43-46

Abstract: Abstract The discovery of fading but relatively long-lived X-ray emission1 accompanying γ-ray bursts has revolutionized the study of these objects. This ‘afterglow’ is most easily explained by models2,3,4 similar to those describing supernovae, but with relativistic ejecta. And as with supernovae, afterglow measurements should in principle provide important constraints on burst properties, permitting, for example, estimates of the amount of energy released, the geometry of the emitting surface and the density of the ambient medium. Here we report infrared observations of the fading optical transient5 associated with the burst of 14 December 1997 (GRB971214; ref. 6). We detect a ‘break’ in the broad-band spectrum, as predicted by afterglow models, which constrains the total energy in the burst to be >1051 erg. Combining the fluence of optical afterglow with the redshift (z = 3.42; ref. 7), we estimate that the energy released in the afterglow alone was 2× 1051 erg. Estimates of afterglow energetics are less likely to be subject to geometric effects—such as beaming—that render uncertain estimates of the total burst energy, but it nevertheless appears from our measurements that γ-ray bursts may be much more energetic than the 1051 erg usually assumed.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/29941 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:393:y:1998:i:6680:d:10.1038_29941

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

DOI: 10.1038/29941

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 ().