Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Angelini, L
• Page, M
• Burrows, D. N
• O'Brien, P. T
• Krimm, H
• Valle, M. Della
• Zhang, B
• Cominsky, L. R
• Page, K. L
• Romano, P
• Moretti, A
• Chincarini, G
• Cummings, J. R
• Immler, S
• Marshall, F. E
• Boyd, P. T
• Sakamoto, T
• Dai, Z. G
• Giommi, P
• White, N. E
• Roming, P. W. A
• Mangano, V
• Nousek, J. A
• Palmer, D. M
• Campana, S
• Waxman, E
• Wells, A. A
• Brown, P
• Tagliaferri, G
• Osborne, J. P
• Gehrels, N
• Malesani, D
• Kennea, J. A
• Mészáros, P
• Barthelmy, S. D
• Blustin, A. J
• Cusumano, G
• Mason, K. O
• Godet, O

Titel

The association of GRB 060218 with a supernova and the evolution of the shock wave

Ist Teil von

• Nature, 2006-08, Vol.442 (7106), p.1008-1010

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2006

Quelle

Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Although the link between long γ-ray bursts (GRBs) and supernovae has been established, hitherto there have been no observations of the beginning of a supernova explosion and its intimate link to a GRB. In particular, we do not know how the jet that defines a γ-ray burst emerges from the star's surface, nor how a GRB progenitor explodes. Here we report observations of the relatively nearby GRB 060218 (ref. 5) and its connection to supernova SN 2006aj (ref. 6). In addition to the classical non-thermal emission, GRB 060218 shows a thermal component in its X-ray spectrum, which cools and shifts into the optical/ultraviolet band as time passes. We interpret these features as arising from the break-out of a shock wave driven by a mildly relativistic shell into the dense wind surrounding the progenitor. We have caught a supernova in the act of exploding, directly observing the shock break-out, which indicates that the GRB progenitor was a Wolf-Rayet star.