A long-duration gamma-ray burst of dynamical origin from the nucleus of an ancient galaxy

Andrew J. Levan*, Daniele B. Malesani, Benjamin P. Gompertz, Anya E. Nugent, Matt Nicholl, Samantha R. Oates, Daniel A. Perley, Jillian Rastinejad, Brian D. Metzger, Steve Schulze, Elizabeth R. Stanway, Anne Inkenhaag, Tayyaba Zafar, J. Feliciano Agüí Fernández, Ashley A. Chrimes, Kornpob Bhirombhakdi, Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, Wen fai Fong, Andrew S. Fruchter, Giacomo FragioneJohan P.U. Fynbo, Nicola Gaspari, Kasper E. Heintz, Jens Hjorth, Pall Jakobsson, Peter G. Jonker, Gavin P. Lamb, Ilya Mandel, Soheb Mandhai, Maria E. Ravasio, Jesper Sollerman, Nial R. Tanvir

*Corresponding author af dette arbejde

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22 Citationer (Scopus)

Abstract

The majority of long-duration (>2 s) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) arise from the collapse of massive stars, with a small proportion created from the merger of compact objects. Most of these systems form via standard stellar evolution pathways. However, a fraction of GRBs may result from dynamical interactions in dense environments. These channels could also contribute substantially to the samples of compact object mergers detected as gravitational wave sources. Here we report the case of GRB 191019A, a long GRB (a duration of T 90 = 64.4 ± 4.5 s), which we pinpoint close (⪅100 pc projected) to the nucleus of an ancient (>1 Gyr old) host galaxy at z = 0.248. The lack of evidence for star formation and deep limits on any supernova emission disfavour a massive star origin. The most likely route for progenitor formation is via dynamical interactions in the dense nucleus of the host. The progenitor, in this case, could be a compact object merger. These may form in dense nuclear clusters or originate in a gaseous disc around the supermassive black hole. Identifying, to the best of our knowledge, a first example of a dynamically produced GRB demonstrates the role that such bursts may have in probing dense environments and constraining dynamical fractions in gravitational wave populations.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftNature Astronomy
Vol/bind7
Sider (fra-til)976-985
ISSN2397-3366
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 22 jun. 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
A.J.L., D.B.M. and N.R.T. are supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 725246). D.B.M. also acknowledges research grant 19054 from VILLUM FONDEN. M.N. and B.P.G. are supported by ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 948381). M.N. acknowledges a Turing Fellowship. The Fong Group at Northwestern acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. AST-1814782 and AST-1909358 and CAREER grant no. AST-2047919. W.F. gratefully acknowledges support by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. K.E.H. acknowledges support from the Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration Fellowship Grant CF21-0103. J.H. was supported by a VILLUM FONDEN Investigator grant (project number 16599). G.L. is supported by the UK Science Technology and Facilities Council grant ST/S000453/1. A.I. acknowledges the research programme Athena with project number 184.034.002, which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). K.B. was supported by STScI HST General Observer Programmes 16548 and 16051 through a grant from STScI under National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract NAS5-26555. The Cosmic Dawn Center is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant no. 140. G.F. acknowledges support from NASA Grant 80NSSC21K1722 and NSF Grant AST-2108624 at Northwestern University. I.M. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council through the Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), project number CE17010004, and through Future Fellowship FT190100574. This work is partly based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, under programmes 58-502 and 61-503, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland and Norway, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. It is also based on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory (programme IDs GS-2019B-DD-106 and GS-2019B-FT-209), a programme of NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil) and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). The data were processed using the Gemini IRAF package and DRAGONS (Data Reduction for Astronomy from Gemini Observatory North and South). In addition, this study is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. These observations are associated with programme nos. 16051 and 16458. This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. The Pan-STARRS1 Surveys (PS1) and the PS1 public science archive have been made possible through contributions by the Institute for Astronomy, the University of Hawaii, the Pan-STARRS Project Office, the Max Planck Society and its participating institutes, the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, We also thank Johns Hopkins University, Durham University, the University of Edinburgh, the Queen’s University Belfast, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network Incorporated, the National Central University of Taiwan, the Space Telescope Science Institute, NASA under Grant No. NNX08AR22G issued through the Planetary Science Division of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, the National Science Foundation Grant No. AST-1238877, the University of Maryland, Eotvos Lorand University, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The work is partly based on observations obtained as part of the VISTA Hemisphere Survey, ESO Progam, 179.A-2010 (PI: McMahon). We made use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

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