Abstract
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been phenomenologically classified into long and short populations based on the observed bimodal distribution of duration1. Multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observations in recent years have revealed that in general long GRBs originate from massive star core collapse events2, whereas short GRBs originate from binary neutron star mergers3. It has been known that the duration criterion is sometimes unreliable, and multi-wavelength criteria are needed to identify the physical origin of a particular GRB4. Some apparently long GRBs have been suggested to have a neutron star merger origin5, whereas some apparently short GRBs have been attributed to genuinely long GRBs6 whose short, bright emission is slightly above the detector’s sensitivity threshold. Here, we report the comprehensive analysis of the multi-wavelength data of the short, bright GRB 200826A. Characterized by a sharp pulse, this burst shows a duration of 1 second and no evidence of an underlying longer-duration event. Its other observational properties such as its spectral behaviours, total energy and host galaxy offset are, however, inconsistent with those of other short GRBs believed to originate from binary neutron star mergers. Rather, these properties resemble those of long GRBs. This burst confirms the existence of short-duration GRBs with stellar core-collapse origin4, and presents some challenges to the existing models.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Processed data are presented in the tables and figures in the paper. Source and optical observational data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding authors. The Fermi GBM data are publicly available at https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/FTP/fermi/data/.
Code availability
Upon reasonable request, the code (mostly in Python) used to produce the results and figures will be provided.
References
Kouveliotou, C. et al. Identification of two classes of gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 413, L101–L104 (1993).
Woosley, S. E. & Bloom, J. S. The supernova–gamma-ray burst connection. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 44, 507–556 (2006).
Abbott, B. P. et al. Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger. Astrophys. J. 848, L12–L70 (2017).
Zhang, B. et al. Discerning the physical origins of cosmological gamma-ray bursts based on multiple observational criteria: the cases of z = 6.7 GRB 080913, z = 8.2 GRB 090423, and some short/hard GRBs. Astrophys. J. 703, 1696–1724 (2009).
Gehrels, N. et al. A new γ-ray burst classification scheme from GRB 060614. Nature 444, 1044–1046 (2006).
Levesque, E. M. et al. GRB 090426: the environment of a rest-frame 0.35-s gamma-ray burst at a redshift of 2.609. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 401, 963–972 (2010).
Meegan, C. et al. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor. Astrophys. J. 702, 791–804 (2009).
Mangan, J., Dunwoody, R., Meegan, C. & Fermi GBM Team. GRB 200826A: Fermi GBM observation. GRB Coord. Netw. 28287 (2020).
Ahumada, T. et al. GRB200826A: Zwicky Transient Facility identifies optical afterglow candidate of a Fermi short GRB (Trigger 620108997). GRB Coord. Netw. 28295 (2020).
Rothberg, B., Kuhn, O., Veillet, C. & Allanson, S. GRB 200826A. GRB Coord. Netw. 28319 (2020).
Ahumada, T., et al. Discovery and confirmation of the shortest gamma ray burst from a collapsar. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/pdf/2105.05067.pdf (2020).
Lü, H.-J., Zhang, B., Liang, E.-W., Zhang, B.-B. & Sakamoto, T. The ‘amplitude’ parameter of gamma-ray bursts and its implications for GRB classification. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 442, 1922–1929 (2014).
Antonelli, L. A. et al. GRB 090426: the farthest short gamma-ray burst? Astron. Astrophys. 507, L45–L48 (2009).
Amati, L. et al. Intrinsic spectra and energetics of BeppoSAX gamma-ray bursts with known redshifts. Astron. Astrophys. 390, 81–89 (2002).
Lü, H.-J., Liang, E.-W., Zhang, B.-B. & Zhang, B. A new classification method for gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 725, 1965–1970 (2010).
Zhang, B. A burst of new ideas. Nature 444, 1010–1011 (2006).
Norris, J. P. et al. Attributes of pulses in long bright gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 459, 393–412 (1996).
Yi, T.-F., Liang, E.-W., Qin, Y.-P. & Lu, R.-J. On the spectral lags of the short gamma-ray bursts. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 367, 1751–1756 (2006).
Fruchter, A. S. et al. Long γ-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae have different environments. Nature 441, 463–468 (2006).
Berger, E. Short-duration gamma-ray bursts. Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 52, 43–105 (2014).
Li, Y., Zhang, B. & Yuan, Q. A comparative study of long and short GRBs. II. A multiwavelength method to distinguish Type II (massive star) and Type I (compact star) GRBs. Astrophys. J. 897, 154–164 (2020).
Gehrels, N. et al. A short γ-ray burst apparently associated with an elliptical galaxy at redshift z = 0.225. Nature 437, 851–854 (2005).
Li, Y., Zhang, B. & Lü, H.-J. A comparative study of long and short GRBs. I. Overlapping properties. Astrophys. J. 227, 7–38 (2016).
Zhang, B. The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts 418–443 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2018).
Belczynski, K., Bulik, T. & Rudak, B. Study of gamma-ray burst binary progenitors. Astrophys. J. 571, 394–412 (2002).
Middleditch, J. A white dwarf merger paradigm for supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 601, L167–L170 (2004).
Vietri, M. & Stella, L. A gamma-ray burst model with small baryon contamination. Astrophys. J. 507, L45–L48 (1998).
Bromberg, O., Nakar, E., Piran, T. & Sari, R. An observational imprint of the Collapsar model of long gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 749, 110–114 (2012).
Metzger, N. et al. The protomagnetar model for gamma-ray bursts. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 413, 2031–2056 (2011).
Kluźniak, W. & Ruderman, M. The central engine of gamma-ray bursters. Astrophys. J. 505, L113–L117 (1998).
Zhang, B.-B. et al. A comprehensive analysis of Fermi gamma-ray burst data. I. Spectral components and the possible physical origins of LAT/GBM GRBs. Astrophys. J. 730, 141–173 (2011).
Zhang, B.-B. et al. Transition from fireball to Poynting-flux-dominated outflow in the three-episode GRB 160625B. Nat. Astron. 2, 69–75 (2018).
Zhang, B.-B. et al. A peculiar low-luminosity short gamma-ray burst from a double neutron star merger progenitor. Nat. Commun. 9, 447 (2018).
Goldstein, A. et al. An ordinary short gamma-ray burst with extraordinary implications: Fermi-GBM detection of GRB 170817A. Astrophys. J. 848, L14–L27 (2017).
Wei, J.-J., Zhang, B.-B., Shao, L., Wu, X.-F. & Mészáros, P. A new test of Lorentz invariance violation: the spectral lag transition of GRB 160625B. Astrophys. J. 834, L13–L18 (2017).
Norris, J. P., Marani, G. F. & Bonnell, J. T. Connection between energy-dependent lags and peak luminosity in gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 534, 248–257 (2000).
Ukwatta, T. N. et al. Spectral lags and the lag–luminosity relation: an investigation with Swift BAT gamma-ray bursts. Astrophys. J. 711, 1073–1086 (2010).
Zhang, B.-B. et al. Unusual central engine activity in the double burst GRB 110709B. Astrophys. J. 748, 132–140 (2012).
Kennicutt, J. Jr. The global Schmidt law in star-forming galaxies. Astrophys. J. 498, 541–552 (1998).
Noll, S. et al. Analysis of galaxy spectral energy distributions from far-UV to far-IR with CIGALE: studying a SINGS test sample. Astron. Astrophys. 507, 1793–1813 (2009).
Schlafly, E. F. & Finkbeiner, D. P. Measuring reddening with Sloan Digital Sky Survey stellar spectra and recalibrating SFD. Astrophys. J. 737, 103 (2011).
Bruzual, G. & Charlot, S. Stellar population synthesis at the resolution of 2003. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 344, 1000–1028 (2003).
Dale, D. A. et al. A two-parameter model for the infrared/submillimeter/radio spectral energy distributions of galaxies and active galactic nuclei. Astrophys. J. 784, 83 (2014).
Acknowledgements
B.-B.Z. acknowledges support by the National Key Research and Development Programs of China (2018YFA0404204), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 11833003 and U2038105) and the Innovative and Entrepreneurial Talent Program in Jiangsu. Y.-Z.M. is supported by the National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (grant no. BX20200164). This work was supported in part by the Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. U1831135 (X.-H.Z.), 11922301 (H.-J.L.), 12041306 (Y.L.) and U1938201 (X.-G.W.)), the Guangxi Science Foundation (2017GXNSFFA198008 (H.-J.L.), 2017AD22006 (X.-G.W.) and 2016GXNSFFA380006 (X.-G.W.)) and the Bagui Young Scholars Program (H.-J.L.). Part of this work is based on observations made with the GTC installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, on the island of La Palma. We also acknowledge the use of public data from the Fermi Science Support Center.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
B.-B.Z. and H.-J.L. initiated the study. B.-B.Z. and B.Z. coordinated the scientific investigations of the event. B.-B.Z., Z.-K.L., Z.-K.P., Y.L., H.-J.L., J.Y., Y.-S.Y., Y.-H.Y., Y.-Z.M. and J.-H.Z. processed and analysed the data. A.J.C.-T. and Y.-D.H. carried out the GTC optical observations. J.-R.M., X.-H.Z. and J.-M.B. carried out the Lijiang 2.4 m optical observations. X.-G.W. and E.-W.L. carried out the LCOGT observations. B.Z. and Z.-G.D. contributed to the theoretical interpretations of the event. B.-B.Z. and B.Z. wrote the paper with contributions from all coauthors and the help of H.-Y.Y. on the format and language.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Spectral fitting results of GRB 200826A.
The table shows the time-integrated and time-resolved spectral fitting results of GRB 200826A with cutoff power law model.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Spectral fitting results within the interval from T0+0.50s to T0+ 1.60 s.
Spectral fitting results within the interval of T0 + 0.50s ~ T0 + 1.60s. a, observed photon count rate spectra and fitted model of nb(red), n7(blue) and b1(sky blue) detectors. b, de-convolved spectra(black points) and best-fit power law model(red line). c, corner plots and histograms show one and two-dimensional posterior probability distributions of cutoff power-law model parameters at 1-σ (purple contours), 2-σ(yellow contours) and 3-σ(green contours) confidence levels. Red error bars and crosses represent best-fit values with 1-σ uncertainties.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Spectral evolution of GRB 200826A.
Spectral evolution of GRB 200826A. Panels a and b show evolution of the photon index (α) and spectral peak energy (Ep) of the cut-off powelaw model, respectively. Panels c and d show the NaI and BGO light curves. All error bars represent 1-σ uncertainties.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Spectral lag calculation.
Spectral lag calculation. a, light curves in different energy bands(10-20 keV ~ 300-500 keV) which are used to calculate lags. b, energy dependent spectral lag between the lowest energy(10-20 keV) band and any higher energy band. All error bars represent 1-σ uncertainties.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Detailed optical observations.
The table shows the observations of the optical counterpart and host galaxy of GRB 200826A.
Extended Data Fig. 6 X-ray afterglow of GRB 200826A.
X-ray afterglow of GRB 200826A. Black points represents the observed X-ray flux in 0.3-10 keV. The solid orange line shows the broken power-law fitting with slopes α = -1.41\({}_{-0.12}^{+0.24}\), β= -0.43\({}_{-0.22}^{+0.17}\) and a break at tb = \(1.5{1}_{-0.30}^{+0.31}\times 1{0}^{5}\) s. The dashed blue line represents the magnetar spin-down energy injection model parameterized by Lsd = L0(1+t/τ)−2 with L0 = 1044.9ergs−1 and τ = 1.0 × 106s. All error bars represent 1-σ uncertainties. The upper limit is at the 3-σ level.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, BB., Liu, ZK., Peng, ZK. et al. A peculiarly short-duration gamma-ray burst from massive star core collapse. Nat Astron 5, 911–916 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01395-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01395-z
This article is cited by
-
A long-duration gamma-ray burst with a peculiar origin
Nature (2022)
-
Photometric studies on the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts using 3.6m Devasthal optical telescope
Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (2022)
-
To be short or long is not the question
Nature Astronomy (2021)