| Literature DB >> 16943830 |
S Campana1, V Mangano, A J Blustin, P Brown, D N Burrows, G Chincarini, J R Cummings, G Cusumano, M Della Valle, D Malesani, P Mészáros, J A Nousek, M Page, T Sakamoto, E Waxman, B Zhang, Z G Dai, N Gehrels, S Immler, F E Marshall, K O Mason, A Moretti, P T O'Brien, J P Osborne, K L Page, P Romano, P W A Roming, G Tagliaferri, L R Cominsky, P Giommi, O Godet, J A Kennea, H Krimm, L Angelini, S D Barthelmy, P T Boyd, D M Palmer, A A Wells, N E White.
Abstract
Although the link between long gamma-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 gamma-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.Year: 2006 PMID： 16943830 DOI： 10.1038/nature04892
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Nature ISSN： 0028-0836 Impact factor: 49.962