Thöne, CC, De Ugarte Postigo, A, Fryer, C, Page, KL, Gorosabel, J, Aloy, MA, Perley, DA, Kouveliotou, C, Janka, HT, Mimica, P and Racusin, JL (2012) GRB 101225A -an unusual stellar death on Christmas Day. In: Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana, Supplementi - Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society, Supplement , 21. pp. 177-180. (GRB's as probes from the progenitors environment to the high redshift Universe, 16-20th May 2011, Como, Italy).

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Abstract

GRB 101225A, the "Christmas burst", was an extremely long γ-ray burst (T90 >2000s) followed by a bright X-ray afterglow and a very unusual optical counterpart. The X-ray spectrum shows an additional black-body component as observed for a few other nearby GRBs. The UV-optical-IR SED does not show any sign of the usual powerlaw behaviour, but evolves as a cooling, expanding black-body until 10 days, after which a faint supernova emerges. We detect a faint host galaxy 6 months after the burst, the faintest host so far associated to a GRB. Our preferred model is a helium-neutron star merger where the post main-sequence star, in the common-envelope phase during inspiral, ejects most of its envelope in the form of a torus. At the final merger creating a GRB-like event, the jet interacts with the material surrounding the progenitor where it gets fully thermalized. GRB 101225A might be a member of a new class of GRB which can only rarely be observed due to the faintness of the non-relativistic counterpart. © SAIt 2012.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics Q Science > QD Chemistry
Divisions:	Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher:	S.A.It
Date Deposited:	24 May 2017 09:45
Last Modified:	13 Apr 2022 15:15
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/6567

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