J/ApJ/916/89 85 short GRB kilonovae opt. & NIR obs. (Rastinejad+, 2021)
Probing kilonova ejecta properties using a catalog of short gamma-ray burst
observations.
Rastinejad J.C., Fong W., Kilpatrick C.D., Paterson K., Tanvir N.R.,
Levan A.J., Metzger B.D., Berger E., Chornock R., Cobb B.E., Laskar T.,
Milne P., Nugent A.E., Smith N.
<Astrophys. J., 916, 89 (2021)>
=2021ApJ...916...89R 2021ApJ...916...89R
ADC_Keywords: GRB; Redshifts; Photometry, ugriz; References
Keywords: Gamma-ray bursts ; Neutron stars
Abstract:
The discovery of GW170817 and GRB 170817A in tandem with AT 2017gfo
cemented the connection between neutron star mergers, short gamma-ray
bursts (GRBs), and kilonovae. To investigate short GRB observations in
the context of diverse kilonova behavior, we present a comprehensive
optical and near-IR catalog of 85 bursts discovered over 2005-2020 on
timescales of ≲12days. The sample includes previously unpublished
observations of 23 bursts and encompasses both detections and deep
upper limits. We identify 11.8% and 15.3% of short GRBs in our catalog
with upper limits that probe luminosities lower than those of
AT2017gfo and a fiducial neutron star-black hole kilonova model (for
pole-on orientations), respectively. We quantify the ejecta masses
allowed by the deepest limits in our catalog, constraining blue and
"extremely blue" kilonova components of 14.1% of bursts to
Mej≲0.01-0.1M☉. The sample of short GRBs is not particularly
constraining for red kilonova components. Motivated by the large
catalog, as well as model predictions of diverse kilonova behavior, we
investigate modified search strategies for future follow-up to short
GRBs. We find that ground-based optical and near-IR observations on
timescales of ≳2days can play a significant role in constraining more
diverse outcomes. We expect future short GRB follow-up efforts, such
as from the James Webb Space Telescope, to expand the reach of
kilonova detectability to redshifts of z∼1.
Description:
We present optical and NIR observations of 85 bursts discovered from
2005 to 2020 in an updated catalog of short GRB observations that
probe kilonova emission properties. We primarily draw from short GRBs
(T90≲2s or classified by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT)
catalog; Lien+ 2016, J/ApJ/829/7) detected by BAT on board Swift.
We draw optical and NIR observations from three sources:
(i) unpublished observations that mainly comprise deep upper limits
(Section 2.2),
(ii) deep upper limits from GCN circulars (searched between 2013 and
2020) that have not been otherwise published in the literature
(Section 2.3), and
(iii) published observations (or reanalyses of published observations)
of past short GRBs, some of which have also been included in previous
samples (Section 2.4).
Notably, this work introduces 55 unpublished observations and over
40 deep upper limits from GCNs. In total, we include observations of
85 bursts.
We obtained new observations of 23 bursts with the 8m twin
Gemini-North and Gemini-South telescopes, the 6.5m MMT, the 6.5m
Magellan/Baade and Clay telescopes, the 4.2m William Herschel
Telescope (WHT), and the 3.8m United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT).
File Summary:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ReadMe 80 . This file
tablea1.dat 86 261 Catalog of short GRB kilonovae observations
refs.dat 57 84 References
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See also:
I/284 : The USNO-B1.0 Catalog (Monet+ 2003)
VII/233 : The 2MASS Extended sources (IPAC/UMass, 2003-2006)
V/147 : The SDSS Photometric Catalogue, Release 12 (Alam+, 2015)
J/MNRAS/397/1177 : Swift-XRT observations of GRBs (Evans+, 2009)
J/ApJ/829/7 : 3rd Swift/BAT GRB catalog (past ∼11yrs) (BAT3) (Lien+, 2016)
J/ApJ/848/L29 : Opt. follow-up of GW170817 counterpart (Diaz+, 2017)
J/ApJ/848/L16 : Counterpart of GW170817. I. DECam (Soares-Santos+, 2017)
J/ApJ/851/L21 : UV-NIR compilation of GW170817 counterpart (Villar+, 2017)
J/ApJ/884/L55 : Opt. follow-up of gal. within S190814bv reg. (Gomez+, 2019)
J/A+A/643/A113 : iz photometry of S190814bv ctp candidates (Ackley+, 2020)
J/ApJ/890/131 : Follow-up of counterparts of S190814bv (Andreoni+, 2020)
J/ApJ/896/L20 : Swift BAT gamma-ray burst durations (Jespersen+, 2020)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea1.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 7 A7 --- Name GRB name
9- 11 A3 --- f_Name Flag on Name (1)
13- 18 F6.4 --- z [0.11/2.22] Known redshift or z=0.5
20 A1 --- f_z [d] Flag on z (2)
22- 44 A23 --- Tel Telescope and Instrument name
46- 51 F6.3 d dt [0.003/11.92] Time since burst
53- 57 A5 --- Band Filter/Band name
59- 62 F4.1 mag mag [20.8/27.7] 3-sigma limit or detection
AB magnitude in Band
64- 67 F4.1 mag e_mag [0.1/0.6]? Error in mag
69- 71 F3.1 --- f_mag [0/1] Detection flag in mag; 1=Detection
73- 80 E8.2 10-7W nuLnu [1e+40/2.6e+44] Luminosity of observation;
in erg/s
82- 86 A5 --- Ref Reference code(s) (see refs.dat file)
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Note (1): Flag as follows:
* = kilonova candidate;
a = Burst does not have an X-ray afterglow found by Swift-XRT.
b = Burst detected by INTEGRAL-IBIS/ISGRI, not detected by Swift-BAT.
c = Burst detected by Fermi-GBM, Fermi-LAT and by Suzaku-WAM,
not detected by Swift-BAT.
d = Limit applies to partial coverage of BAT localization.
e = We present a separate analysis of observations published
in O'Connor+ 2021MNRAS.502.1279O 2021MNRAS.502.1279O (68) finding upper limits
deeper by 0.2-0.3 magnitudes.
Note (2): Flag as follows:
d = Redshift unknown, z=0.5 taken as fiducial value in analysis, except
for GRB 180418A which is assumed to be z=1.0 (c.f.,
Rouco Escorial+ 2021ApJ...912...95R 2021ApJ...912...95R).
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: refs.dat
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 2 I2 --- Ref Reference code
4- 22 A19 --- BibCode Bibcode of the reference
24- 47 A24 --- Auth First author's name(s)
49- 57 A9 --- Comm Comment
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 30-Dec-2022