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A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc

Nature volume 612, pages 223–227 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are divided into two populations1,2; long GRBs that derive from the core collapse of massive stars (for example, ref. 3) and short GRBs that form in the merger of two compact objects4,5. Although it is common to divide the two populations at a gamma-ray duration of 2 s, classification based on duration does not always map to the progenitor. Notably, GRBs with short (≲2 s) spikes of prompt gamma-ray emission followed by prolonged, spectrally softer extended emission (EE-SGRBs) have been suggested to arise from compact object mergers6,7,8. Compact object mergers are of great astrophysical importance as the only confirmed site of rapid neutron capture (r-process) nucleosynthesis, observed in the form of so-called kilonovae9,10,11,12,13,14. Here we report the discovery of a possible kilonova associated with the nearby (350 Mpc), minute-duration GRB 211211A. The kilonova implies that the progenitor is a compact object merger, suggesting that GRBs with long, complex light curves can be spawned from merger events. The kilonova of GRB 211211A has a similar luminosity, duration and colour to that which accompanied the gravitational wave (GW)-detected binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817 (ref. 4). Further searches for GW signals coincident with long GRBs are a promising route for future multi-messenger astronomy.

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Fig. 1: Swift/BAT and Fermi/GBM gamma-ray light curves of GRB 211211A.
Fig. 2: The field of GRB 211211A in HST and Gemini North imaging.
Fig. 3: Afterglow and kilonova models fit to selected observations of the broadband counterpart of GRB 211211A.

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Data availability

Most of the data generated or analysed during this study are included in the Extended Data Tables of this article. Gamma-ray and X-ray light curves may be downloaded from the UK Swift Science Data Centre and the online HEASARC archive at https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/fermi/fermigbrst.html. Any further data requests should be made to J.C.R.

Code availability

The kilonova model scripts are available at https://github.com/guillochon/MOSFiT. The scripts used to model the afterglow will be publicly available on publication of this manuscript. The Prospector stellar population modelling code is available at https://github.com/bd-j/prospector.

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Acknowledgements

We thank S. Kattner, S. Self, J. Hinz and I. Chilingarian at the MMT and J. Andrews and K. Chiboucas at Gemini Observatory for their assistance in obtaining observations. We thank A. von Kienlin for providing the GBM hardness versus duration data. We thank P. Schmidt and G. Pratten for assistance with the LIGO S/R calculations. The Fong group at Northwestern acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under grant nos. AST-1814782 and AST-1909358 and CAREER grant no. AST-2047919. W.F. gratefully acknowledges support by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. A.J.L. and D.B.M. are supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 725246). M.N. and B.P.G. are supported by the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 948381). M.N. acknowledges a Turing Fellowship. G.P.L. is supported by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council grant ST/S000453/1. A.R. and E.M. acknowledge support from the INAF research project ‘LBT - Supporto Arizona Italia’. J.F.A.F. acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades through the grant PRE2018-086507. D.A.K. and J.F.A.F. acknowledge support from Spanish National Research Project RTI2018-098104-J-I00 (GRBPhot). W. M. Keck Observatory and MMT Observatory access was supported by Northwestern University and the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We wish to recognize and acknowledge the very important cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Observations reported here were obtained at the MMT Observatory, a joint facility of the University of Arizona and the Smithsonian Institution. On the basis of observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory (programme ID GN2021B-Q-109), a programme of NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil) and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). Processed using the Gemini IRAF package and DRAGONS (Data Reduction for Astronomy from Gemini Observatory North and South). This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This research is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope obtained from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. These observations are associated with programme no. 16923. This work is partly based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, on the island of La Palma. Partly based on observations collected at the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, operated jointly by Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC) and Junta de Andalucía. Partly based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, under programme 64-502, owned in collaboration by the University of Turku and Aarhus University, and operated jointly by Aarhus University, the University of Turku and the University of Oslo, representing Denmark, Finland and Norway, respectively, the University of Iceland and Stockholm University at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, La Palma, Spain, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the United States, Italy and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are: The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona Board of Regents; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy; LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max Planck Society, The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State University, representing OSU, University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of Virginia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jillian C. Rastinejad, Wen-fai Fong, Anya E. Nugent, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Genevieve Schroeder, Peter K. Blanchard, Kerry Paterson, Alicia Rouco Escorial & Huei M. Sears

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Jillian C. Rastinejad, Wen-fai Fong, Anya E. Nugent, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Genevieve Schroeder, Peter K. Blanchard, Kerry Paterson, Alicia Rouco Escorial & Huei M. Sears

  3. Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Benjamin P. Gompertz, Matt Nicholl, Samantha R. Oates & Christopher J. Moore

  4. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Benjamin P. Gompertz, Matt Nicholl, Samantha R. Oates & Christopher J. Moore

  5. Department of Astrophysics, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Andrew J. Levan, Daniele B. Malesani, Maria Edvige Ravasio & Tanmoy Laskar

  6. Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Andrew J. Levan, Daniele B. Malesani, Maria Edvige Ravasio & Tanmoy Laskar

  7. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Gavin P. Lamb & Nial R. Tanvir

  8. Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Copenhagen, Denmark

    Daniele B. Malesani & Johan P. U. Fynbo

  9. Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Daniele B. Malesani & Johan P. U. Fynbo

  10. Artemis, Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Nice, France

    Antonio de Ugarte Postigo

  11. Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA

    Brian D. Metzger

  12. Department of Physics, Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Brian D. Metzger

  13. INAF, Astronomical Observatory of Brera, Merate, Italy

    Maria Edvige Ravasio

  14. INAF, Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Bologna, Italy

    Andrea Rossi

  15. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Jacob Jencson, David J. Sand & Nathan Smith

  16. Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Granada, Spain

    José Feliciano Agüí Fernández & D. Alexander Kann

  17. Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Edo Berger

  18. Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Ryan Chornock

  19. Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Bethany E. Cobb

  20. Department of Mathematical and Computer Science, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences, Polo Papardo, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Massimiliano De Pasquale

  21. Dark Cosmology Centre, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Luca Izzo

  22. INAF, Observatory of Rome, Monte Porzio Catone, Italy

    Ester Marini

  23. Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie (MPIA), Heidelberg, Germany

    Kerry Paterson

  24. Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ASU-CAS), Ondřejov, Czech Republic

    Christina C. Thöne

Authors
  1. Jillian C. Rastinejad
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Contributions

J.C.R. is Principal Investigator of the MMT observations (shared Principal Investigator with N.S. on MMIRS follow-up) and the HST programme. J.C.R. reduced and analysed most of the optical-NIR data and led the writing. B.P.G. identified the source as a possible merger, analysed the high-energy observations, provided modelling support and contributed to the text. A.J.L. analysed observations, provided analysis and co-wrote the text. W.F. is Principal Investigator of the Gemini and VLA programmes and provided input on analysis and text. M.N. performed the kilonova and the Ni-powered transient modelling, and contributed text. G.P.L. identified the source as a possible merger, devised the joint kilonova and afterglow modelling method, and modelled the afterglow. D.B.M. is Principal Investigator of the NOT follow-up, and reduced and analysed observations. A.E.N. reduced the Keck spectrum and performed stellar population modelling. S.R.O. analysed the Swift/UVOT observations. N.R.T. provided input and rates analysis. A.d.U.P., D.A.K., J.F.A.F. and C.C.T. executed and reduced the CAHA and GTC observations. C.D.K. reduced and analysed the HST observations. C.J.M. calculated the GW observability. B.D.M., R.C. and M.E.R. provided input on modelling and analysis. A.R. and E.M. executed and reduced the LBT observation. G.S. executed and reduced the radio observation. J.J., D.J.S. and N.S. contributed MMT follow-up time and provided input on the scientific interpretation. L.I. and J.P.U.F. contributed to reduction of the NOT observations. A.E.N., P.K.B., C.D.K. and H.M.S. executed the Keck spectrum. E.B., R.C., B.E.C., M.D.P., T.L., K.P. and A.R.E. are co-investigators of the programmes used in this work and/or provided input on the scientific interpretation.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jillian C. Rastinejad.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Table 1 Optical-NIR observations of the counterpart and host galaxy of GRB 211211A
Full size table
Extended Data Table 2 Swift/UVOT photometry of the counterpart to GRB 211211A
Full size table
Extended Data Table 3 Afterglow modelling parameters
Full size table

Extended Data Fig. 1 The host of GRB 211211A is a low-mass, actively star-forming galaxy in the local universe.

a, The 2D NOT/ALFOSC spectra of the afterglow and host of GRB 211211A. b, Keck/DEIMOS 1D spectrum (blue) and 1σ uncertainty (dot-dashed blue line) compared with the arbitrarily scaled NOT/ALFOSC afterglow spectrum (red) and Prospector model spectrum (grey). We highlight the strong emission lines in the observed host spectrum, none of which are detected in the 1D or 2D afterglow spectrum. c, The observed host photometry (blue circles) and 3σ uncertainties (blue lines), Prospector model photometry (black squares) and Prospector model spectrum (grey line). The Prospector-derived SED matches the observed photometry, spectral continuum and spectral line strengths well.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Temporal evolution of the UV through NIR SED of the counterparts to GRB 211211A and GW170817.

Circles or squares represent detections, whereas triangles represent upper limits. For both GRB 211211A (solid lines) and GW170817 (dashed lines), the counterparts’ SEDs at 4–5.1 days post-burst (dark blue and purple) demonstrate a notable reddening compared with those at earlier epochs.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Corner plot showing posterior distributions for the basic kilonova model.

This model consists of three ejecta components and a fraction ζ of the blue (low-lanthanide) ejecta that is heated by shocks from the GRB jet. The final parameter is a white-noise term for modelling systematics in the data. The labelled 1σ error bars are statistical only; we estimate further systematic error of about 50% on these parameters (see Methods).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Light curve fit using the binary-based kilonova model21.

The dashed lines show a model for AT 2017gfo evaluated at the same redshift, z = 0.076.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Corner plot showing posterior distributions for the binary-based kilonova model.

The model consists of three ejecta components whose masses, velocities and opacities depend on the chirp mass and binary mass ratio (q) and the fraction of ejecta lost through disk (ε) and magnetic (α) winds. A fraction ζ of the blue (low-lanthanide) ejecta is heated by shocks from the GRB jet over a timescale tshock. The final parameter is a white-noise term for modelling systematics in the data. The labelled 1σ error bars are statistical only; we estimate further systematic error of about 50% on these parameters (see Methods).

Extended Data Fig. 6 Light curve fit using a 56Ni-powered model.

This provides a poor fit, as the single radioactive component is unable to cool quickly enough to match the early UV and longer-term NIR emission. The best-fitting parameters require an unrealistic composition of 100% 56Ni and an ejecta velocity pushing against the upper bound of the prior at 0.4c.

Extended Data Fig. 7 The optical and NIR light curves of GRB 211211A have similar luminosities and decay rates compared with past kilonovae and kilonova candidates.

The rest-frame i-band (a) and K-band (b) light curves of GRB 211211A (purple diamonds), GW170817/AT 2017gfo (grey points, ref. 20 and references therein) and previous short GRB kilonova upper limits (yellow triangles) and detections (yellow circles105,147,150,151). As there are no other rest-frame K-band kilonova light curves beyond AT 2017gfo, we plot rest-frame J-band and H-band short GRB kilonova observations for comparison (open circles and triangles105,147,150,151,152,153,154,155). At z = 0.076, the K-band counterpart to GRB 211211A is of similar luminosity to AT 2017gfo and fades on similar timescales.

Extended Data Fig. 8 The ejecta mass and velocities estimated for GRB 211211A compared with those of past kilonovae and kilonova candidates.

Best-fit ejecta and velocity estimates (including 1σ errors) of the red (a), purple (b) and blue (c) kilonova components of GRB 211211A (purple boxes; Methods section ‘Kilonova model’). We also plot ejecta mass and velocity estimates for two-component models of AT 2017gfo (red boxes; compiled in ref. 148 and references therein), a three-component model of AT 2017gfo (red stars21) and previous short GRB kilonovae (labelled yellow boxes105,149). As two-component models of AT 2017gfo do not distinguish between the ‘purple’ and ‘red’ components included in our analysis, we plot past two-component ‘red’ estimates on both corresponding panels. We plot the dynamical ejecta estimates for GRB 160821B on the red and blue panels and the disk mass on the purple panel. We plot the total estimate for GRB 130603B on all panels. Our estimates for GRB 211211A fall within the range of AT 2017gfo and past kilonova candidates. As ejecta mass and velocity estimates are highly model-dependent, we note that the most robust comparison is between the three-component estimates for AT 2017gfo (stars) and our results for GRB 211211A.

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Rastinejad, J.C., Gompertz, B.P., Levan, A.J. et al. A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc. Nature 612, 223–227 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05390-w

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