Limit on Supernova Emission in the Brightest Gamma-Ray Burst, GRB 221009A
- University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
- Konkoly Observatory, Budapest (Hungary); ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (Hungary); University of Texas, Austin, TX (United States); University of Szeged (Hungary)
- Gemini Observatory, Hilo, HI (United States)
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (United States)
- W.M. Keck Observatory, Kamuela, HI (United States)
- University of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
- Las Cumbres Observatory, Goleta, CA (United States); University of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA (United States); NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions, Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ (United States)
- University of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
- University of Tarapaca, Iquique (Chile)
- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); University. of Chicago, IL (United States). Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP)
- ASTRAVEO LLC, MA (United States); Applied Materials Inc., Gloucester, MA (United States)
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States)
- University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
- University of Surrey, Guildford (United Kingdom)
- Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
- Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ (United States); Macquarie University, North Ryde (Australia)
We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of the extraordinary gamma-ray burst (GRB) 221009A in search of an associated supernova. Some past GRBs have shown bumps in the optical light curve that coincide with the emergence of supernova spectral features, but we do not detect any significant light-curve features in GRB 221009A, nor do we detect any clear sign of supernova spectral features. Using two well-studied GRB-associated supernovae (SN 2013dx, Mr,max =-19.54;$ SN 2016jca, Mr,max =-19.04$) at a similar redshift as GRB 221009A (z = 0.151), we modeled how the emergence of a supernova would affect the light curve. If we assume the GRB afterglow to decay at the same rate as the X-ray data, the combination of afterglow and a supernova component is fainter than the observed GRB brightness. For the case where we assume the best-fit power law to the optical data as the GRB afterglow component, a supernova contribution should have created a clear bump in the light curve, assuming only extinction from the Milky Way. If we assume a higher extinction of E(B - V) = 1.74 mag (as has been suggested elsewhere), the supernova contribution would have been hard to detect, with a limit on the associated supernova of Mr,max ≈ -$19.54. We do not observe any clear supernova features in our spectra, which were taken around the time of expected maximum light. The lack of a bright supernova associated with GRB 221009A may indicate that the energy from the explosion is mostly concentrated in the jet, leaving a lower energy budget available for the supernova.
- Research Organization:
- Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); FONDECYT; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-07CH11359; NAS 5-26555; AST 0907903; 1911225; 1911151
- OSTI ID:
- 1924309
- Report Number(s):
- FERMILAB-PUB-23-055-PPD; arXiv:2302.03829; oai:inspirehep.net:2630649; TRN: US2312502
- Journal Information:
- The Astrophysical Journal. Letters, Vol. 946, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-8205
- Publisher:
- IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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