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The sub-energetic gamma-ray burst GRB 031203 as a cosmic analogue to the nearby GRB 980425.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  15295592     Owner:  NLM     Status:  PubMed-not-MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Over the six years since the discovery of the gamma-ray burst GRB 980425, which was associated with the nearby (distance approximately 40 Mpc) supernova 1998bw, astronomers have debated fiercely the nature of this event. Relative to bursts located at cosmological distance (redshift z approximately 1), GRB 980425 was under-luminous in gamma-rays by three orders of magnitude. Radio calorimetry showed that the explosion was sub-energetic by a factor of 10. Here we report observations of the radio and X-ray afterglow of the recent GRB 031203 (refs 5-7), which has a redshift of z = 0.105. We demonstrate that it too is sub-energetic which, when taken together with the low gamma-ray luminosity, suggests that GRB 031203 is the first cosmic analogue to GRB 980425. We find no evidence that this event was a highly collimated explosion viewed off-axis. Like GRB 980425, GRB 031203 appears to be an intrinsically sub-energetic gamma-ray burst. Such sub-energetic events have faint afterglows. We expect intensive follow-up of faint bursts with smooth gamma-ray light curves (common to both GRB 031203 and 980425) to reveal a large population of such events.
Authors:
A M Soderberg; S R Kulkarni; E Berger; D W Fox; M Sako; D A Frail; A Gal-Yam; D S Moon; S B Cenko; S A Yost; M M Phillips; S E Persson; W L Freedman; P Wyatt; R Jayawardhana; D Paulson
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Nature     Volume:  430     ISSN:  1476-4687     ISO Abbreviation:  Nature     Publication Date:  2004 Aug 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2004-08-05     Completed Date:  2004-08-18     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0410462     Medline TA:  Nature     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  648-50     Citation Subset:  -    
Affiliation:
Caltech Optical Observatories 105-24, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA. ams@astro.caltech.edu
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