Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST

Levan, A. J.; Gompertz, B. P.; Salafia, O. S.; Bulla, Mattia; Burns, Eric; Hotokezaka, Kenta; Izzo, L.; Lamb, Gavin P.; Malesani, D.; Oates, S. R.; Ravasio, M. E.; Escorial, Alicia Rouco; Schneider, Benjamin; Sarin, Nikhil; Schulze, S.; Tanvir, N. R.; Ackley, K.; Anderson, G. E.; Brammer, Gabriel; Christensen, L.; Dhillon, V. S.; Evans, P. A.; Fausnaugh, Michael; Fong, Wen‐fai; Fruchter, A. S.; Fryer, Chris L.; Fynbo, J. P. U.; Gaspari, Nicola; Heintz, K. E.; Hjorth, J.; Kennea, J. A.; Kennedy, Mark; Laskar, T.; Leloudas, G.; Mandel, Ilya; Martín-Carrillo, A.; Metzger, Brian D.; Nicholl, M.; Nugent, Anya E.; Palmerio, J. T.; Pugliese, G.; Rastinejad, Jillian; Rhodes, L.; Rossi, A.; Saccardi, Andrea; Smartt, Stephen J.; Stevance, Heloise F.; Tohuvavohu, Aaron; Horst, Alexander van der; Vergani, Susanna D.; Watson, Darach; Barclay, Thomas; Bhirombhakdi, Kornpob; Breedt, Elmé; Breeveld, Alice A.; Brown, Alexander J.; Campana, Sergio; Chrimes, Ashley A.; D’Avanzo, Paolo; D’Elia, Valerio; Pasquale, Massimiliano De; Dyer, Martin J.; Galloway, Duncan K.; Garbutt, James A.; Green, Matthew J.; Hartmann, Dieter H.; Jakobsson, Páll; Kerry, Paul; Kouveliotou, Chryssa; Langeroodi, Danial; Floc’h, Emeric Le; Leung, James K.; Littlefair, Stuart P.; Munday, James; O’Brien, Paul; Parsons, Steven G.; Pelisoli, Ingrid; Sahman, David I.; Salvaterra, Ruben; Sbarufatti, Boris; Steeghs, Danny; Tagliaferri, Gianpiero; Thöne, Christina C.; Postigo, Antonio de Ugarte; Kann, David Alexander

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06759-1

preprintNatureOct 25, 2023HYBRID OA

Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST

AJA. J. Levan BPB. P. Gompertz OSO. S. Salafia MBMattia Bulla EBEric Burns

Radboud University Nijmegen · University of Warwick · +72 more institutions

Indexed incrossref

Abstract

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 mergers 4–6 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…

Citation impact

205

total citations

FWCI: 21.32
Percentile: 100%
References: 72

Citations per year

Authors

85

Topics & keywords

Topics

Advanced X-ray and CT Imaging96%

Keywords

Physics
Kilonova
Gamma-ray burst
Neutron star
Astrophysics
Nucleosynthesis
Gravitational wave
Compact star

No related works found for this paper.