Abstract
The mergers of binary compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes are of central interest to several areas of astrophysics, including as the progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)1, sources of high-frequency gravitational waves (GWs)2 and likely production sites for heavy-element nucleosynthesis by means of rapid neutron capture (the r-process)3. Here we present observations of the exceptionally bright GRB 230307A. We show that GRB 230307A belongs to the class of long-duration GRBs associated with compact object mergers4–6 and contains a kilonova similar to AT2017gfo, associated with the GW merger GW170817 (refs. 7–12). We obtained James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy 29 and 61 days after the burst. The spectroscopy shows an emission line at 2.15 microns, which we interpret as tellurium (atomic mass A = 130) and a very red source, emitting most of its light in the mid-infrared owing to the production of lanthanides. These observations demonstrate that nucleosynthesis in GRBs can create r-process elements across a broad atomic mass range and play a central role in heavy-element nucleosynthesis across the Universe.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 737-741 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Nature |
| Volume | 626 |
| Issue number | 8000 |
| Early online date | 25 Oct 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 22 Feb 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgments:We dedicate this paper to David Alexander Kann, who passed on 10 March 2023. He was the first to realize the exceptional brightness of GRB 230307A, and the final messages he sent were about its follow-up. We hope it would satisfy his curiosity to know the final conclusions. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for the JWST. These observations are associated with programme nos. 4434 and 4445. This paper is partly based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory under ESO programme 110.24CF (PI: Tanvir) and on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory (programme ID GS-2023A-DD-105), a programme of NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the NSF (USA), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (Argentina), Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações (Brazil) and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). Processed using the Gemini IRAF package and DRAGONS (Data Reduction for Astronomy from Gemini Observatory North and South). A.J.L., D.B.M. and N.R.T. were supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 725246). M.B. acknowledges the Department of Physics and Earth Science of the University of Ferrara for the financial support through the FIRD 2022 grant. K.H. is supported by JST FOREST Program (JPMJFR2136) and the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (20H05639, 20H00158, 23H01169, 20K14513). G.P.L. is supported by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (grant nos. DHF-R1-221175 and DHF-ERE-221005). M.E.R. acknowledges support from the research programme Athena with project number 184.034.002, which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). N.S. is supported by a Nordita fellowship. Nordita is supported in part by NordForsk. S.S. acknowledges support from the G.R.E.A.T. research environment, funded by Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Research Council, project number 2016-06012. V.S.D. and ULTRACAM are funded by STFC grant ST/V000853/1. G.L. was supported by a research grant (19054) from VILLUM FONDEN. The Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant no. 140. J.P.U.F. is supported by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF-4090-00079) and thanks the Carlsberg Foundation for support. D.W. is co-funded by the European Union (ERC, HEAVYMETAL, 101071865). D.K.G. acknowledges support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), through project number CE170100004. N.G. acknowledges support from the NWO under project number 680.92.18.02. K.E.H. acknowledges support from the Carlsberg Foundation Reintegration Fellowship Grant CF21-0103. J.H. and D.L. were supported by a VILLUM FONDEN Investigator grant (project number 16599). B.D.M. is supported in part by the NSF (grant AST-2002577). M.N. is supported by the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 948381) and by UK Space Agency grant no. ST/Y000692/1. S.J.S. acknowledges funding from STFC grants ST/X006506/1 and ST/T000198/1. H.F.S. is supported by the Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Schmidt Futures programme. A.A.B. acknowledges funding from the UK Space Agency. P.O.B. acknowledges funding from STFC grant ST/W000857/1. D.S. acknowledges funding from STFC grants ST/T000406/1, ST/T003103/1 and ST/X001121/1. A.S. acknowledges support from DIM-ACAV+ and CNES. S.C., P.D.A., B.Sb. and G.T. acknowledge funding from the Italian Space Agency, contract ASI/INAF no. I/004/11/4.