Bibcode
Levan, Andrew J.; Gompertz, Benjamin P.; Salafia, Om Sharan; Bulla, Mattia; Burns, Eric; Hotokezaka, Kenta; Izzo, Luca; Lamb, Gavin P.; Malesani, Daniele B.; Oates, Samantha R.; Ravasio, Maria Edvige; Rouco Escorial, Alicia; Schneider, Benjamin; Sarin, Nikhil; Schulze, Steve; Tanvir, Nial R.; Ackley, Kendall; Anderson, Gemma; Brammer, Gabriel B.; Christensen, Lise; Dhillon, Vikram S.; Evans, Phil A.; Fausnaugh, Michael; Fong, Wen-fai; Fruchter, Andrew S.; Fryer, Chris; Fynbo, Johan P. U.; Gaspari, Nicola; Heintz, Kasper E.; Hjorth, Jens; Kennea, Jamie A.; Kennedy, Mark R.; Laskar, Tanmoy; Leloudas, Giorgos; Mandel, Ilya; Martin-Carrillo, Antonio; Metzger, Brian D.; Nicholl, Matt; Nugent, Anya; Palmerio, Jesse T.; Pugliese, Giovanna; Rastinejad, Jillian; Rhodes, Lauren; Rossi, Andrea; Saccardi, Andrea; Smartt, Stephen J.; Stevance, Heloise F.; Tohuvavohu, Aaron; van der Horst, Alexander; Vergani, Susanna D.; Watson, Darach; Barclay, Thomas; Bhirombhakdi, Kornpob; Breedt, Elmé; Breeveld, Alice A.; Brown, Alexander J.; Campana, Sergio; Chrimes, Ashley A.; D'Avanzo, Paolo; D'Elia, Valerio; De Pasquale, Massimiliano; Dyer, Martin J.; Galloway, Duncan K.; Garbutt, James A.; Green, Matthew J.; Hartmann, Dieter H.; Jakobsson, Páll; Kerry, Paul; Kouveliotou, Chryssa; Langeroodi, Danial; Le Floc'h, Emeric; Leung, James K.; Littlefair, Stuart P.; Munday, James; O'Brien, Paul; Parsons, Steven G.; Pelisoli, Ingrid; Sahman, David I.; Salvaterra, Ruben; Sbarufatti, Boris; Steeghs, Danny; Tagliaferri, Gianpiero; Thöne, Christina C.; de Ugarte Postigo, Antonio; Kann, David Alexander
Referencia bibliográfica
Nature
Fecha de publicación:
2
2024
Revista
Número de citas
50
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
The mergers of binary compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes are of central interest to several areas of astrophysics, including as the progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)1, sources of high-frequency gravitational waves (GWs)2 and likely production sites for heavy-element nucleosynthesis by means of rapid neutron capture (the r-process)3. Here we present observations of the exceptionally bright GRB 230307A. We show that GRB 230307A belongs to the class of long-duration GRBs associated with compact object mergers4-6 and contains a kilonova similar to AT2017gfo, associated with the GW merger GW170817 (refs. 7-12). We obtained James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy 29 and 61 days after the burst. The spectroscopy shows an emission line at 2.15 microns, which we interpret as tellurium (atomic mass A = 130) and a very red source, emitting most of its light in the mid-infrared owing to the production of lanthanides. These observations demonstrate that nucleosynthesis in GRBs can create r-process elements across a broad atomic mass range and play a central role in heavy-element nucleosynthesis across the Universe.