Published December 20, 2013 | Version v1
Journal article

A SUPRAMASSIVE MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE FOR GRB 130603B

  • 1. Key Laboratory of dark Matter and Space Astronomy, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Science, Nanjing 210008 (China)
  • 2. Institute of Astrophysics, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079 (China)
  • 3. Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen (Denmark)
  • 4. Chinese Center for Antarctic Astronomy, Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008 (China)
  • 5. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154 (United States)

Description

We show that the peculiar early optical emission and, in particular, the X-ray afterglow emission of the short-duration burst GRB 130603B can be explained by continuous energy injection into the blastwave from a supramassive magnetar central engine. The observed energetics and temporal/spectral properties of the late infrared bump (i.e., the kilonova) are also found to be consistent with emission from the ejecta launched during a neutron star (NS)-NS merger and powered by a magnetar central engine. The isotropic-equivalent kinetic energies of both the gamma-ray burst (GRB) blastwave and the kilonova are approximately Ek ∼ 1051 erg, consistent with being powered by a near-isotropic magnetar wind. However, this relatively small value requires that most of the initial rotational energy of the magnetar (∼a few × 1052 erg) is carried away by gravitational wave radiation. Our results suggest that (1) the progenitor of GRB 130603B was a NS-NS binary system, the merger product of which would have been a supramassive NS that lasted for about ∼1000 s; (2) the equation of state of the nuclear matter should be stiff enough to allow the survival of a long-lived supramassive NS; thus this suggested that the detection of the bright electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave triggers without short GRB associations is promising in the upcoming Advanced LIGO/VIRGO era

Availability note (English)

Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/779/2/L25

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Journal Volume
779
Journal Issue
2
Journal Page Range
[4 p.]
ISSN
2041-8205