Abstract
Long-lived emission, known as afterglow, has now been detected from about a dozen γ-ray bursts. Distance determinations place the bursts at cosmological distances, with redshifts, z, ranging from ∼1 to 3. The energy required to produce these bright γ-ray flashes is enormous: up to ∼1053 erg, or 10 per cent of the rest-mass energy of a neutron star, if the emission is isotropic. Here we present optical and near-infrared observations of the afterglow of GRB990123, and we determine a redshift of z ⩾ 1.6. This is to date the brightest γ-ray burst with a well-localized position and if the γ-rays were emitted isotropically, the energy release exceeds the rest-mass energy of a neutron star, so challenging current theoretical models of the sources. We argue, however, that our data may provide evidence of beamed (rather than isotropic) radiation, thereby reducing the total energy released to a level where stellar-death models are still tenable.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Klebesadel, R. W., Strong, I. B. & Olson, R. A. Observations of gamma-ray bursts of cosmic origin. Astrophys. J. 182, L85– L88 (1973).
Metzger, M. R. et al. Spectral constraints on the redshift of the optical counterpart to the γ-ray burst of May 8, 1997. Nature 387 , 878–879 (1997).
Boella, G. et al. BeppoSAX, the wide band mission for x-ray astronomy. Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 122, 299– 399 (1997).
Levine, A. M. et al. First results from the All-Sky Monitor on the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. Astrophys. J. 469, L33– L36 (1996).
Costa, E. et al. Discovery of an X-ray afterglow associated with the γ-ray burst of 28 February 1997. Nature 387, 783– 785 (1997).
van Paradijs, J. et al . Transient optical emission from the error box of the γ-ray burst of 28 February 1997. Nature 386, 686 –689 (1997).
Frail, D. A., Kulkarni, S. R., Nicastro, L., Feroci, M. & Taylor, G. B. The radio afterglow from the γ-ray burst of 8 May 1997. Nature 389, 261– 263 (1997).
Kulkarni, S. R. et al . Identification of a host galaxy at redshift z = 3.42 for the γ-ray burst of 14 December 1997. Nature 393, 35–39 (1998).
Djorgovski, S. G. et al . Spectroscopy of the host galaxy of the gamma-ray burst 980703. Astrophys. J. 508, L17– L20 (1998).
Djorgovski, S. G. et al. GRB980613: Spectroscopy of the host galaxy. GCN Circ. No. 189 (1999).
Grindlay, J. Fast X-ray transients and gamma-ray bursts: constraints on beaming. Astrophys. J. 510, 710–714 (1999).
Greiner, J., Voges, W., Boiler, T. & Hartmann, D. Search for GRB afterglows in the ROSAT all-sky survey. Astron. Astrophys. (submitted).
Heise, J. et al. Avery energetic γ-ray burst on January 23 1999 and its X-ray afterglow. Nature (submitted).
Kippen, R. M. GRB990123: BATSE observations. GCN Circ. No. 224 ( 1999).
Piro, L. GRB990123, BeppoSAX WFC detection and NFI planned follow-up. GCN Circ. No. 199 (1999).
The GRB Coordinates Network at 〈http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/ 〉.
Beckwith, S. For immediate posting to GCN — HST Data GRB990123 available. GCN Note No. 254 (1999).
Bloom, J. S. et al. The host galaxy of GRB990123. Preprint astro-ph/9902182 at 〈http://xxx.lanl.gov〉 (1999).
Katz, J. I. Low-frequency spectra of gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 432, L110–L113 (1994).
Mészáros, P. & Rees, M. J. Optical and long-wavelength afterglow from gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 476, 232–240 (1997).
Vietri, M. The soft X-ray afterglow of gamma-ray bursts, a stringent test for the fireball model. Astrophys. J. 478, L9– L12 (1997).
Waxman, E. Gamma-ray-burst afterglow: supporting the cosmological fireball model, constraining parameters, and making predictions. Astrophys. J. 485 , L5–L8 (1997).
Sari, R., Piran, T. & Narayan, R. Spectra and light curves of gamma-ray burst afterglows. Astrophys. J. 497, L17– L20 (1998).
Wijers, R. A. M. J. & Galama, T. J. Physical parameters of GRB970508 and GRB971214 from their afterglow synchrotron emission. Preprint astro-ph/9806175 at 〈http://xxx.lanl.gov〉 (1998).
Ramaprakash, A. N. et al. The energetic afterglow of the γ-ray burst of 14 December 1997. Nature 393, 43– 46 (1998).
Sokolov, V. V. et al . BVR C I C photometry of GRB970508 optical remnant: May–August 1997. Astron. Astrophys. 334, 117–123 ( 1998).
Groot, P. et al. The decay of optical emission from the γ-ray burst GRB970228. Nature 387, 479–481 (1997).
Falco, E., Petry, C., Impey, C., Koekemoer, A. & Rhoads, J. GRB990123 optical observations. GCN Circ. No. 214 (1999).
Oke, J. B. et al. the Keck Low-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 107, 375–385 (1995).
Hjorth, J. et al. GRB990123 spectroscopic redshifts. GCN Circ. No. 219 (1999).
Steidel, C. C. & Sargent, W. L. W. MgII absorption in the spectra of 103 QSOs: implications for the evolution of gas in high-redshift galaxies. Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 80, 1– 108 (1992).
Hjorth, J. et al. GRB990123 NOT spectrum update. GCN Circ. No. 249 (1999).
Akerlof, C. et al. Observation of contemporaneous optical radiation from a γ-ray burst. Nature 398, 400– 402 (1999).
Sari, R. & Piran, T. GRB900123, The optical flash and the fireball model. Preprint astro-ph/9902009 at 〈 http://xxx.lanl.gov 〉 (1999).
Pen, U.-L. & Loeb, A. Gamma-ray bursts from baryon decay in neutron stars. Astrophys. J. 509, 537– 543 (1998).
Djorgovski, S. G. et al. GCN Circ. No. 216 (1999 ).
Holz, D. E., Coleman, M. M. & Quashnock, J. M. Gravitational lensing limits on the average redshift of gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 510, 54–63 (1999).
Schaefer, B. E. GRB990123, probability of gravitational lensing. GCN Circ. No. 241 (1999).
Mochkovich, R., Hernanz, M., Isern, J. & Martin, X. Gamma-ray bursts as collimated jets from neutron star/black hole mergers. Nature 361, 236–237 (1993).
Mao, S. & Yi, I. Relativistic beaming and gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 424, L131– L134 (1994).
Katz, J. I. Yet another model for gamma ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 490, 633–640 (1997).
Mészáros, P. & Rees, M. J. Poynting jets from black holes and cosmological gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 482, L29–L32 (1997).
Dar, A. Can fireball models explain gamma-ray bursts? Astrophys. J. 500, L93–L96 (1998).
Rhoads, J. E. How to tell a jet from a balloon: a proposed test for beaming in gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 478, L1– L4 (1997).
Pedersen, H. et al. Evidence for diverse optical emission from gamma-ray burst sources. Astrophys. J. 496, 311– 315 (1998).
Galama, T. et al. Optical follow up of GRB970508. Astrophys. J. 497, L13–L16 (1998).
Bloom, J. S., Djorgovski, S. G., Kulkarni, S. R. & Frail, D. A. The host galaxy of GRB970508. Astrophys. J. 507, L25–L28 (1998).
Fruchter, A. S. et al . The fading optical counterpart of GRB970228, six months and one year later. Preprint astro-ph/9807295 at 〈http://xxx.lanl.gov 〉 (1998).
Frail, D. A., Bloom, J. S., Kulkarni, S. R. & Taylor, G. B. The light curve and the spectrum of the radio afterglow of GRB980703. Astrophys. J. (submitted).
Waxman, E., Kulkarni, S. R. & Frail, D. A. Implications of the radio afterglow from the gamma-ray burst of 1997 May 8. Astrophys. J. 497, 288–293 (1998).
Rhoads, J. E. Constraining gamma ray burst beaming. Preprint, Kitt Peak National Observatory (1998).
Mészáros, P. & Rees, M. J. GRB990123: reverse and internal shock flashes and late afterglow behavior. Preprint astro-ph/9902367 at 〈 http://xxx.lanl.gov〉 (1999).
Sagar, R. et al. Optical follow up of the GRB990123 source from UPSO, Nainital. Preprint astro-ph/9902196 at 〈http://xxx.lanl.gov〉 (1999).
Masetti, N. et al. GRB990123, optical BVRI observations. GCN Circ. No. 233 (1999).
Garnavich, P., Jha, S., Stanek, K. & Garcia, M. GRB990123, optical observation. GCN Circ. No. 215 (1999).
Thuan, T. X. & Gunn, J. E. Anew four-colour intermediate-band photometric system. Proc. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 88, 543–547 (1976).
Oke, J. B. & Gunn, J. E. Secondary standard stars for absolute spectrophotometry. Astrophys. J. 266, 713 –717 (1983).
Landolt, A. UBVRI photometric standard stars in the magnitude range 11.5–16.0 around the celestial equator. Astron. J. 104, 340 –376 (1992).
Zhu, J. & Zhang, H. T. GRB990123 optical observation. GCN Circ. No. 204 (1999).
Monet, D. G. The 526,280,881 objects in the USNO-A2.0 catalog. Bull. Am. Astron. Soc. 193, 225 (1998).
Schlegel, D. J., Finkbeiner, D. P. & Davis, M. Maps of dust infrared emission for use in estimation of reddening and cosmic microwave background radiation foregrounds. Astrophys. J. 500, 525–553 (1998).
Press, W. H., Teukolsky, S. A., Vetterling, W. T. & Flannery, B. P. Numerical Recipes in C 683–699 (Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, (1992).
Acknowledgements
We thank G. Neugebauer for obtaining infrared data on 29 January 1999. We thank A. Filippenko, L. Hillenbrand, J. Carpenter and K. Leighly for agreeing to exchange telescope time, thereby enabling us to follow up this GRB, and B. Oppenheimer for help with observations. Some of the observations reported here were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated by the California Association for Research in Astronomy, a scientific partnership among California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. It was made possible by the support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. S.R.K.'s research is supported by the NSF and NASA. S.G.D. acknowledges partial support from the Bressler Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kulkarni, S., Djorgovski, S., Odewahn, S. et al. The afterglow, redshift and extreme energetics of the γ-ray burst of 23 January 1999. Nature 398, 389–394 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18821
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/18821
This article is cited by
-
Methods for detection and analysis of weak radio sources with single-dish radio telescopes
Experimental Astronomy (2020)
-
Neutron star mergers and how to study them
Living Reviews in Relativity (2020)
-
United classification of cosmic gamma-ray bursts and their counterparts
Astrophysics and Space Science (2008)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.