The Peculiar Precursor of a Gamma-Ray Burst from a Binary Merger Involving a Magnetar

Abstract

The milestone discovery of GW 170817-GRB 170817A-AT 2017gfo has shown that gravitational wave (GW) could be produced during the merger of neutron star-neutron star/black hole and that in electromagnetic (EM) wave a gamma-ray burst (GRB) and a kilonova (KN) are generated in sequence after the merger. Observationally, however, EM property before the merger phase is still unclear. Here we report a peculiar precursor in a KN-associated long-duration GRB 211211A, providing evidence of the EM before the merger. This precursor lasts $\sim$ 0.2 s, and the waiting time between the precursor and the main burst is $\sim$ 1 s, comparable to that between GW 170817 and GRB 170817A. The spectrum of the precursor could be well fit with a non-thermal cutoff power-law model instead of a blackbody. Especially, a $\sim$22 Hz Quasi-Periodic Oscillation candidate ($\sim 3\sigma$) is detected in the precursor. These temporal and spectral properties indicate that this precursor is probably produced by a catastrophic flare accompanying with magnetoelastic or crustal oscillations of a magnetar in binary compact merger. The strong magnetic field of the magnetar can also account for the prolonged duration of GRB 211211A. However, it poses a challenge to reconcile the rather short lifetime of a magnetar with the rather long spiraling time of a binary neutron star system only by the GW radiation before merger.

Published by ApJ. 13 pages, 11 figures

References in corpus (31)

• Gravitational Waves and Gamma-rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
• The Supernova -- Gamma-Ray Burst Connection
• The generalised Lomb-Scargle periodogram. A new formalism for the floating-mean and Keplerian periodograms
• Formation of Double Neutron Star Systems
• Discerning the physical origins of cosmological Gamma-ray bursts based on multiple observational criteria: the cases of z=6.7 GRB 080913, z=8.3 GRB 090423, and some short/hard GRBs
• A Kilonova Following a Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Burst at 350 Mpc
• A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects
• A long-duration gamma-ray burst with a peculiar origin
• JWST detection of heavy neutron capture elements in a compact object merger
• High resolution numerical-relativity simulations for the merger of binary magnetized neutron stars
• Neutron Star Asteroseismology. Axial Crust Oscillations in the Cowling Approximation
• Torsional Oscillations of Relativistic Stars with Dipole Magnetic Fields
• Fermi-GBM Discovery of GRB 221009A: An Extraordinarily Bright GRB from Onset to Afterglow
• Formation Rates and Evolution Histories of Magnetars
• Imprints of neutrino-pair flavor conversions on nucleosynthesis in ejecta from neutron-star merger remnants
• Can magnetic fields be detected during the inspiral of binary neutron stars?
• The case for a minute-long merger-driven gamma-ray burst from fast-cooling synchrotron emission
• Internal Energy Dissipation of Gamma-Ray Bursts Observed with Swift: Precursors, Prompt Gamma-rays, Extended emission and Late X-ray Flares
• GeV emission from a compact binary merger
• Spectrum of shear modes in the neutron-star crust: Estimating the nuclear-physics uncertainties
• Kilohertz quasiperiodic oscillations in short gamma-ray bursts
• A tale of two mergers: constraints on kilonova detection in two short GRBs at z$\sim$0.5
• Quasi-periodic oscillations of the X-ray burst from the magnetar SGR J1935+2154 and associated with the fast radio burst FRB 200428
• Stringent Search for Precursor Emission in Short GRBs from Fermi/GBM data and Physical Implications
• Tidally-induced Magnetar Super Flare at the Eve of Coalescence with Its Compact Companion
• Searching for quasi-periodic oscillations in astrophysical transients using Gaussian processes
• Quasi-periodic oscillations in precursor flares via seismic aftershocks from resonant shattering
• Pitfalls of periodograms: The non-stationarity bias in the analysis of quasi-periodic oscillations
• Search for Quasi-Periodical Oscillations in Precursors of Short and Long Gamma Ray Bursts
• Temporal Analysis of GRB Precursors in the Third Swift-BAT Catalog
• Magneto-elastic torsional oscillations of magnetars

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Premerger phenomena in neutron-star binary coalescences
• Evidence for a brief appearance of gamma-ray periodicity after a compact star merger
• Nonlinear Alfvén-wave Dynamics and Premerger Emission from Crustal Oscillations in Neutron Star Mergers
• Nonradial oscillations of stratified neutron stars with solid crusts: Mode characterization and tidal resonances in coalescing binaries
• Prospects for Time-Domain and Multi-Messenger Science with eXTP
• Impact of the relativistic Cowling approximation on shear and interface modes of neutron stars
• Searching for quasi-periodicities in short transients: the curious case of GRB 230307A
• A search for periodic activity in multi-peaked long gamma-ray bursts
• A 4.5-s Quasiperiodic Spectral Oscillation in GRB 230307A: Evidence for Free Precession of a Post-Merger Magnetar?
• Gravitational waves associated with the r-mode instability from neutron star-white dwarf mergers
• Non-linear saturation of gravito-inertial modes excited by tidal resonances in binary neutron stars
• Nonlinear coupling between magnetar QPOs
• Spectral Hardness as the Primary Discriminator: Unveiling the Collapsar--Merger Boundary with a Gold-Standard Gamma-Ray Burst Sample