Discovery of a gamma-ray burst with an associated supernova

Abstract

We report the discovery of the nearby long, soft GRB 100316D, and the subsequent unveiling of its host galaxy and associated supernova. We study the extremely unusual prompt emission with time-resolved gamma-ray to X-ray spectroscopy and find that a thermal component in addition to the synchrotron spectrum is required. The host galaxy is a bright, blue galaxy with a highly disturbed morphology. From optical photometry and spectroscopy we provide an accurate astrometry and redshift, and derive the key host properties of star formation rate and stellar age. We compare our findings for this GRB-SN with the well known previous case of GRB 060218. GRB 100316D is an important addition to the current sparse sample of spectroscopically confirmed GRB-SNe, from which a better understanding of long GRB progenitors and the GRB-SN connection can be gleaned.

7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Proceedings of Science, 8th INTEGRAL Workshop, The Restless Gamma-ray Universe, 27-30 September 2010, Dublin, Ireland

References in corpus (8)

• Long gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae have different environments
• Low-Resolution Spectroscopy of Gamma-ray Burst Optical Afterglows: Biases in the Swift Sample and Characterization of the Absorbers
• Discovery of the nearby long, soft GRB 100316D with an associated supernova
• The First Swift BAT Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog
• IFU observations of the GRB 980425/SN 1998bw host galaxy: emission line ratios in GRB regions
• The nature of the dwarf starforming galaxy associated with GRB 060218 / SN2006aj
• XRF 100316D/SN 2010bh: clue to the diverse origin of nearby supernova-associated GRBs
• How common are long Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Local Universe?