GRB 191016A: A Long Gamma-Ray Burst Detected by TESS

Abstract

The TESS exoplanet-hunting mission detected the rising and decaying optical afterglow of GRB 191016A, a long Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) detected by Swift-BAT but without prompt XRT or UVOT follow-up due to proximity to the moon. The afterglow has a late peak at least 1000 seconds after the BAT trigger, with a brightest-detected TESS datapoint at 2589.7 s post-trigger. The burst was not detected by Fermi-LAT, but was detected by Fermi-GBM without triggering, possibly due to the gradual nature of rising light curve. Using ground-based photometry, we estimate a photometric redshift of $z_{\mathrm{phot}}=3.29\pm 0.40$. Combined with the high-energy emission and optical peak time derived from TESS, estimates of the bulk Lorentz factor ${\Gamma }_{\mathrm{BL}}$ range from $90-133$. The burst is relatively bright, with a peak optical magnitude in ground-based follow-up of $R=15.1$ mag. Using published distributions of GRB afterglows and considering the TESS sensitivity and sampling, we estimate that TESS is likely to detect $\sim 1$ GRB afterglow per year above its magnitude limit.

10 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• GRB 191016A: The onset of the forward shock and evidence of late energy injection
• Polarimetry and Photometry of Gamma-Ray Bursts Afterglows with RINGO3
• GRB 191016A: A highly collimated gamma-ray burst jet with magnetised energy injection
• A Comprehensive Investigation of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows Detected by TESS
• Searching for Gravitational-Wave Counterparts using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Broad-band Spectral Modeling of Prompt Emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts Observed by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite