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Title: iPTF14yb: The First Discovery of a Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Independent of a High-Energy Trigger

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [3];  [7];  [8];  [9];  [10];  [11];  [12];  [13];  [10];  [4];  [12];  [14];  [14];  [15] more »;  [15];  [16];  [10];  [15];  [3];  [12];  [17];  [14];  [18];  [19];  [19];  [14];  [4];  [20];  [15];  [14];  [21] « less
  1. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States). Astrophysics Science Division; Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Joint Space Inst.
  2. Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (United States). Leonard E. Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology and Astrophysics
  3. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
  4. Weizmann Inst. of Science, Rehovot (Israel). Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics
  5. Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States). Dept. of Physics
  6. Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept of Astronomy & Astrophysics
  7. Observatories of the Carnegie Inst. for Science, Pasadena, CA (United States)
  8. ASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States). Astrophysics Science Division; Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD (United States). Dept. of Physics
  9. Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, Goleta, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Theoretical Physics
  10. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy
  11. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). School of Earth and Space Exploration; Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). Cosmology Initiative
  12. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States). Astrophysics Science Division
  13. Univ. Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City (Mexico). Inst. de Astronomia
  14. Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ (United States). Cosmology Initiative
  15. Max Planck Inst. fur Extraterrestrische Physik, Garching (Germany)
  16. Thuringer Landessternwarte Tautenburg, Tautenburg (Germany)
  17. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States). Spitzer Science Center
  18. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Computational Cosmology Center; Univ. Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), Mexico City (Mexico). Inst. de Astronomia
  19. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics and UCO/Lick Observatory
  20. National Central Univ. (Taiwan). Inst. of Astronomy
  21. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

We report here the discovery by the Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) of iPTF14yb, a luminous (Msub>r ≈ ₋27.8 mag), cosmological (redshift 1.9733), rapidly fading optical transient. We demonstrate, based on probabilistic arguments and a comparison with the broader population, that iPTF14yb is the optical afterglow of the long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB140226A. This marks the rst unambiguous discovery of a GRB afterglow prior to (and thus entirely independent of) an associated high-energy trigger. We estimate the rate of iPTF14yb-like sources (i.e., cosmologically dis- tant relativistic explosions) based on iPTF observations, inferring an all-sky value of $$R_{rel}$$ = 610yr-1 (68% con dence interval of 110{2000 yr-1). Our derived rate is consistent (within the large uncer- tainty) with the all-sky rate of on-axis GRBs derived by the Swift satellite. Finally, we brie y discuss the implications of the nondetection to date of bona de \orphan" afterglows (i.e., those lacking de- tectable high-energy emission) on GRB beaming and the degree of baryon loading in these relativistic jets.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Science Foundation (NSF); TLS Tautenburg; TABASGO Foundation
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; NNX09AH71G; NNX09AT02G; NNX10AI27G; CN 09-283; IN113810; CB-2008-101958; NFR-2009-01-122785; NNX12AE66G; PHY-0970074; PHY-1307429; AST-1211916; NNX13AP036; NNX14AI95G
OSTI ID:
1329568
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-21105
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online), Vol. 803, Issue 2; ISSN 2041-8213
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 40 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (22)

Multiwavelength follow-up of a rare IceCube neutrino multiplet journal November 2017
Bulk Lorentz factors of gamma-ray bursts journal January 2018
Analysis of broad-lined Type Ic supernovae from the (intermediate) Palomar Transient Factory journal January 2019
The Zwicky Transient Facility Alert Distribution System journal November 2018
A Strategy for LSST to Unveil a Population of Kilonovae without Gravitational-wave Triggers journal May 2019
Late-time evolution of afterglows from off-axis neutron star mergers journal August 2018
The fast, luminous ultraviolet transient AT2018cow: extreme supernova, or disruption of a star by an intermediate-mass black hole? journal December 2018
The Palomar Transient Factory Sky2Night programme journal January 2019
Probing the extragalactic fast transient sky at minute time-scales with DECam journal December 2019
Gamma-ray bursts and their use as cosmic probes journal July 2017
Proper Image Subtraction—Optimal Transient Detection, Photometry, and Hypothesis Testing journal October 2016
A Comparative Study of long and Short Grbs. i. Overlapping Properties journal November 2016
iPTF Archival Search for Fast Optical Transients journal February 2018
Discovery of the Luminous, Decades-long, Extragalactic Radio Transient FIRST J141918.9+394036 journal October 2018
Multiwavelength follow-up of a rare IceCube neutrino multiplet text January 2017
Proper image subtraction - optimal transient detection, photometry and hypothesis testing text January 2016
Multiwavelength follow-up of a rare IceCube neutrino multiplet text January 2017
Bulk Lorentz factors of Gamma-Ray Bursts text January 2017
iPTF Archival Search for Fast Optical Transients text January 2017
The Fast, Luminous Ultraviolet Transient AT2018cow: Extreme Supernova, or Disruption of a Star by an Intermediate-Mass Black Hole? text January 2018
Discovery of the Luminous, Decades-Long, Extragalactic Radio Transient FIRST J141918.9+394036 text January 2018
The Zwicky Transient Facility Alert Distribution System text January 2019

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