The second-closest gamma-ray burst: Sub-luminous GRB 111005A with no supernova in a super-solar metallicity environment
Journal article, 2018
We report the detection of the radio afterglow of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB) 111005A at 5-345 GHz, including very long baseline interferometry observations with a positional error of 0.2 mas. The afterglow position is coincident with the disc of a galaxy ESO 58049 at z = 0.01326 (∼1″ from its centre), which makes GRB 111005A the second-closest GRB known to date, after GRB 980425. The radio afterglow of GRB 111005A was an order of magnitude less luminous than those of local low-luminosity GRBs, and obviously less luminous than those of cosmological GRBs. The radio flux was approximately constant and then experienced an unusually rapid decay a month after the GRB explosion. Similarly to only two other GRBs, we did not find the associated supernovae (SNe), despite deep near- and mid-infrared observations 1-9 days after the GRB explosion, reaching ∼20 times fainter than other SNe associated with GRBs. Moreover, we measured a twice-solar metallicity for the GRB location. The low y-ray and radio luminosities, rapid decay, lack of a SN, and super-solar metallicity suggest that GRB 111005A represents a rare class of GRB that is different from typical core-collapse events. We modelled the spectral energy distribution of the GRB 111005A host finding that it is a moderately star-forming dwarf galaxy, similar to the host of GRB 980425. The existence of two local GRBs in such galaxies is still consistent with the hypothesis that the GRB rate is proportional to the cosmic star formation rate (SFR) density, but suggests that the GRB rate is biased towards low SFRs. Using the far-infrared detection of ESO 580-49, we conclude that the hosts of both GRBs 111005A and 980425 exhibit lower dust content than what would be expected from their stellar masses and optical colors.
Dust, extinction
Galaxies: abundances
Galaxies: star formation
Galaxies: individual: ESO 580-49
Gamma-ray burst: individual: 111005A
Gamma-ray burst: general
Author
M. J. Michalowski
University of Edinburgh
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Dong Xu
University of Edinburgh
Chinese Academy of Sciences
J. Stevens
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Andrew Levan
The University of Warwick
Jun Yang
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Onsala Space Observatory
Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE)
Z. Paragi
Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE)
Atish Kamble
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
An Li Tsai
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
H. Dannerbauer
University of Vienna
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
University of La Laguna
A. J. van der Horst
George Washington University
Lang Shao
Hebei Normal University
Chinese Academy of Sciences
David Crosby
University of Edinburgh
Gianfranco Gentile
Ghent university
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)
Elizabeth Stanway
The University of Warwick
K. Wiersema
University Of Leicester
The University of Warwick
Johan P.U. Fynbo
Niels Bohr Institute
Nial R. Tanvir
University Of Leicester
Peter Kamphuis
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
M. A. Garrett
Leiden University
University of Manchester
Przemysław Bartczak
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
Astronomy and Astrophysics
0004-6361 (ISSN) 1432-0746 (eISSN)
Vol. 616 A169Subject Categories
Subatomic Physics
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics
Infrastructure
Onsala Space Observatory
DOI
10.1051/0004-6361/201629942