Early optical emission from the γ-ray burst of 4 October 2002

D. W. Fox (), S. Yost, S. R. Kulkarni, K. Torii, T. Kato, H. Yamaoka, M. Sako, F. A. Harrison, R. Sari, P. A. Price, E. Berger, A. M. Soderberg, S. G. Djorgovski, A. J. Barth, S. H. Pravdo, D. A. Frail, A. Gal-Yam, Y. Lipkin, T. Mauch, C. Harrison and H. Buttery
Additional contact information
D. W. Fox: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
S. Yost: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
S. R. Kulkarni: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
K. Torii: Cosmic Radiation Laboratory, RIKEN
T. Kato: Kyoto University
H. Yamaoka: Kyushu University
M. Sako: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
F. A. Harrison: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
R. Sari: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
P. A. Price: RSAA, Mt Stromlo Observatory
E. Berger: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
A. M. Soderberg: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
S. G. Djorgovski: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
A. J. Barth: California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
S. H. Pravdo: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MS 306-438
D. A. Frail: National Radio Astronomy Observatory
A. Gal-Yam: Tel-Aviv University
Y. Lipkin: Tel-Aviv University
T. Mauch: University of Sydney
C. Harrison: RSAA, Mt Stromlo Observatory
H. Buttery: Astrophysics Group, Cavendish Laboratory

Nature, 2003, vol. 422, issue 6929, 284-286

Abstract: Abstract Observations of the long-lived emission—or ‘afterglow’—of long-duration γ-ray bursts place them at cosmological distances, but the origin of these energetic explosions remains a mystery. Observations of optical emission contemporaneous with the burst of γ-rays should provide insight into the details of the explosion, as well as into the structure of the surrounding environment. One bright optical flash was detected during a burst1, but other efforts2,3 have produced negative results. Here we report the discovery of the optical counterpart of GRB021004 only 193 seconds after the event. The initial decline is unexpectedly slow and requires varying energy content in the γ-ray burst blastwave over the course of the first hour. Further analysis of the X-ray and optical afterglow suggests additional energy variations over the first few days.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01504 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:422:y:2003:i:6929:d:10.1038_nature01504

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature01504

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 ().