Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published December 20, 2016 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

The Afterglow and Early-type Host Galaxy of the Short GRB 150101B at z = 0.1343

Abstract

We present the discovery of the X-ray and optical afterglows of the short-duration GRB 150101B, pinpointing the event to an early-type host galaxy at z = 0.1343 ± 0.0030. This makes GRB 150101B the most nearby short gamma-ray burst (GRB) with an early-type host galaxy discovered to date. Fitting the spectral energy distribution of the host galaxy results in an inferred stellar mass of ≈7 x 10^(10) M⊙, stellar population age of ≈2–2.5 Gyr, and star formation rate of ≾0.4 M⊙ yr^(-1). The host of GRB 150101B is one of the largest and most luminous short GRB host galaxies, with a B-band luminosity of ≈4.3L* and half-light radius of ≈8 kpc. GRB 150101B is located at a projected distance of 7.35 ± 0.07 kpc from its host center and lies on a faint region of its host rest-frame optical light. Its location, combined with the lack of associated supernova, is consistent with an NS–NS/NS–BH merger progenitor. From modeling the evolution of the broadband afterglow, we calculate isotropic-equivalent gamma-ray and kinetic energies of ≈1.3 x 10^(49) erg and ≈(6-14) x 10^(51) erg, respectively, a circumburst density of ≈(0.8-4) x 10^(-5) cm^(-3), and a jet opening angle of ≳9°. Using observations extending to ≈30 days, we place upper limits of ≾(2-4) x 10^(41) erg s^(-1) on associated kilonova emission. We compare searches following previous short GRBs to existing kilonova models and demonstrate the difficulty of performing effective kilonova searches from cosmological short GRBs using current ground-based facilities. We show that at the Advanced LIGO/VIRGO horizon distance of 200 Mpc, searches reaching depths of ≈23–24 AB mag are necessary to probe a meaningful range of kilonova models.

Additional Information

© 2016 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2016 August 30; revised 2016 October 20; accepted 2016 October 22; published 2016 December 14. Support for this work was provided by NASA through Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship grant no. PF4-150121. R.M. acknowledges generous support from the James Arthur Fellowship at NYU. R.C. acknowledges support from NASA Swift grant NNX16AB04G. E.B. acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-1411763 and NASA ADA grant NNX15AE50G. B.J.S. is supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-51348.001 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. Based on observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory acquired through the Gemini Observatory Archive and processed using the Gemini IRAF package, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologa e Innovacin Productiva (Argentina), and Ministrio da Cincia, Tecnologia e Inovao (Brazil). The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) is supported by NASA and operated under an agreement among the University of Hawaii, the University of Arizona, and Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; operations are enabled through the cooperation of the East Asian Observatory. We thank the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) for processing the WFCAM data and the WFCAM Science Archive (WSA) for making the data available. VLA observations were obtained under Program 14A-344. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with program no. 13830. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. The scientific results reported in this article are based in part on observations made by the Chandra X-ray Observatory (ObsID: 17594) and data obtained from the Chandra Data Archive (ObsID: 17586). Based on observations collected at the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere. Facilities: Swift (BAT, XRT), Chandra (ACIS-S), Magellan (IMACS), Gemini-South (GMOS), UKIRT (WFCAM), HST, VLA, VLT (HAWK-I).

Attached Files

Published - Fong_2016_ApJ_833_151.pdf

Submitted - 1608.08626v1.pdf

Files

1608.08626v1.pdf
Files (7.5 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:cd507c052c82633b04f0b073188569ea
3.7 MB Preview Download
md5:f64191ec4e4ca78bffdf256aaa3801db
3.8 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023