A Luminous Precursor in the Extremely Bright GRB 230307A

S. Dichiara; D. Tsang; E. Troja; D. Neill; J. P. Norris; Y. H. Yang

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/acf21d

A Luminous Precursor in the Extremely Bright GRB 230307A

S. Dichiara, D. Tsang, E. Troja, D. Neill, J. P. Norris, Y. H. Yang

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

15 Citations (SciVal)

Abstract

GRB 230307A is an extremely bright long-duration GRB with an observed gamma-ray fluence of ≳3 × 10⁻³ erg cm⁻² (10-1000 keV), second only to GRB 221009A. Despite its long duration, it is possibly associated with a kilonova, thus resembling the case of GRB 211211A. In analogy with GRB 211211A, we distinguish three phases in the prompt gamma-ray emission of GRB 230307A: an initial short duration, spectrally soft emission; a main long duration, spectrally hard burst; and a temporally extended and spectrally soft tail. We interpret the initial soft pulse as a bright precursor to the main burst and compare its properties with models of precursors from compact binary mergers. We find that to explain the brightness of GRB 230307A, a magnetar-like (≳10¹⁵ G) magnetic field should be retained by the progenitor neutron star. Alternatively, in the postmerger scenario, the luminous precursor could point to the formation of a rapidly rotating massive neutron star.

Original language	English
Article number	L29
Journal	Astrophysical Journal Letters
Volume	954
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acf21d
Publication status	Published - 4 Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
D.T. and D.N.'s research was supported by UK Science and Technology Facilities Council grant ST/X001067/1 and Royal Society research grant RGS /R1 /231499.

Funding Information:
The material is based upon work supported by NASA under award No. 80NSSC22K1516. E.T. and Y.-H.Y. were supported by the European Research Council through the Consolidator grant BHianca (grant agreement ID 101002761). Part of this work was carried out at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation grant PHY-2210452.

Funding Information:
This research has made use of data and software provided by the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), which is a service of the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA/GSFC and the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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10.3847/2041-8213/acf21dLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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A Luminous Precursor in the Extremely Bright GRB 230307A

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Astrophysics at the University of Bath 2023-2026

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A Luminous Precursor in the Extremely Bright GRB 230307A

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Bibliographical note

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Astrophysics at the University of Bath 2023-2026

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