Implications for the origin of GRB 051103 from LIGO observations

Abadie, J. et al. (2012) Implications for the origin of GRB 051103 from LIGO observations. Astrophysical Journal, 755(1), Art. 2. (doi: 10.1088/0004-637X/755/1/2)

Abstract

We present the results of a LIGO search for gravitational waves (GWs) associated with GRB 051103, a short-duration hard-spectrum gamma-ray burst (GRB) whose electromagnetically determined sky position is coincident with the spiral galaxy M81, which is 3.6 Mpc from Earth. Possible progenitors for short-hard GRBs include compact object mergers and soft gamma repeater (SGR) giant flares. A merger progenitor would produce a characteristic GW signal that should be detectable at a distance of M81, while GW emission from an SGR is not expected to be detectable at that distance. We found no evidence of a GW signal associated with GRB 051103. Assuming weakly beamed γ-ray emission with a jet semi-angle of 30°, we exclude a binary neutron star merger in M81 as the progenitor with a confidence of 98%. Neutron star-black hole mergers are excluded with >99% confidence. If the event occurred in M81, then our findings support the hypothesis that GRB 051103 was due to an SGR giant flare, making it one of the most distant extragalactic magnetars observed to date.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Grant, Mr Alastair and MacDonald, Miss Erin and Messenger, Dr Christopher and Beveridge, Miss Nicola and Bell, Dr Angus and Nawrodt, Dr Ronny and Hammond, Professor Giles and Hild, Professor Stefan and Barr, Dr Bryan and Sorazu Lucio, Dr Borja and Reid, Professor Stuart and Edgar, Dr Matthew and Gill, Mr Colin and Veitch, Dr John and Plissi, Dr Michael and Speirits, Dr Fiona and Heng, Professor Ik Siong and van Veggel, Dr Marielle and Newton, Dr Gavin and Torrie, Dr Calum and Graef, Dr Christian and Hendry, Professor Martin and Scott, Dr Jamie and Rowan, Professor Sheila and Abernathy, Mr Matthew and Kumar, Mr Rahul and Martin, Dr Iain and Robertson, Professor Norna and Cumming, Dr Alan and Bastarrika, Mr Mikel and Cunningham, Dr Liam and Woan, Professor Graham and Nelson, Mr John and Hough, Professor James and Huttner, Dr Sabina and Bassiri, Mr Riccardo and Campsie, Mr Paul and Strain, Professor Kenneth and Jones, Mr Russell and Haughian, Dr Karen and Murray, Dr Peter and Pitkin, Dr Matthew
• Authors: Abadie, J., Abbott, B. P., Abbott, T. D., Abbott, R., Abernathy, M., Adams, C., Adhikari, R., Affeldt, C., Ajith, P., Allen, B., Allen, G. S., Amador Ceron, E., Amariutei, D., Amin, R. S., Anderson, S. B., Anderson, W. G., Arai, K., Arain, M. A., Araya, M. C., Aston, S. M., Atkinson, D., Aufmuth, P., Aulbert, C., Aylott, B. E., Babak, S., Baker, P., Ballmer, S., Barker, D., Barnum, S., Barr, B., Barriga, P., Barsotti, L., Barton, M. A., Bartos, I., Bassiri, R., Bastarrika, M., Bauchrowitz, J., Behnke, B., Bell, A.S., Belopolski, I., Benacquista, M., Bertolini, A., Betzwieser, J., Beveridge, N., Beyersdorf, P. T., Bilenko, I. A., Billingsley, G., Birch, J., Biswas, R., Black, E., Blackburn, J. K., Blackburn, L., Blair, D., Bland, B., Bock, O., Bodiya, T. P., Bogan, C., Bondarescu, R., Bork, R., Born, M., Bose, S., Boyle, M., Brady, P. R., Braginsky, V. B., Brau, J. E., Breyer, J., Bridges, D. O., Brinkmann, M., Britzger, M., Brooks, A. F., Brown, D. A., Brummitt, A., Buonanno, A., Burguet-Castell, J., Burmeister, O., Byer, R. L., Cadonati, L., Camp, J. B., Campsie, P., Cannizzo, J., Cannon, K., Cao, J., Capano, C., Caride, S., Caudill, S., Cavaglia, M., Cepeda, C., Chalermsongsak, T., Chalkley, E., Charlton, P., Chelkowski, S., Chen, Y., Christensen, N., Chua, S. S. Y., Chung, S., Chung, C. T. Y., Clara, F., Clark, D., Clark, J., Clayton, J. H., Conte, R., Cook, D., Corbitt, T. R. C., Cornish, N., Costa, C. A., Coughlin, M., Coward, D. M., Coyne, D. C., Creighton, J. D. E., Creighton, T. D., Cruise, A. M., Cumming, A., Cunningham, L., Culter, R. M., Dahl, K., Danilishin, S. L., Dannenberg, R., Danzmann, K., Das, K., Daudert, B., Daveloza, H., Davies, G., Daw, E. J., Dayanga, T., DeBra, D., Degallaix, J., Dent, T., Dergachev, V., DeRosa, R., DeSalvo, R., Dhurandhar, S., Di Palma, I., Díaz, M., Donovan, F., Dooley, K. L., Dorsher, S., Douglas, E. S. D., Drever, R. W. P., Driggers, J. C., Dumas, J.-C., Dwyer, S., Eberle, T., Edgar, M., Edwards, M., Effler, A., Ehrens, P., Engel, R., Etzel, T., Evans, M., Evans, T., Factourovich, M., Fairhurst, S., Fan, Y., Farr, B. F., Fazi, D., Fehrmann, H., Feldbaum, D., Finn, L. S., Flanigan, M., Foley, S., Forsi, E., Fotopoulos, N., Frede, M., Frei, M., Frei, Z., Freise, A., Frey, R., Fricke, T. T., Friedrich, D., Fritschel, P., Frolov, V. V., Fulda, P., Fyffe, M., Garcia, J., Garofoli, J. A., Gholami, I., Ghosh, S., Giaime, J. A., Giampanis, S., Giardina, K. D., Gill, C., Goetz, E., Goggin, L. M., González, G., Gorodetsky, M. L., Goßler, S., Graef, C., Grant, A., Gras, S., Gray, C., Greenhalgh, R. J. S., Gretarsson, A. M., Grosso, R., Grote, H., Grunewald, S., Guido, C., Gupta, R., Gustafson, E. K., Gustafson, R., Hage, B., Hallam, J. M., Hammer, D., Hammond, G., Hanks, J., Hanna, C., Hanson, J., Harms, J., Harry, G. M., Harry, I. W., Harstad, E. D., Hartman, M. T., Haughian, K., Hayama, K., Heefner, J., Hendry, M.A., Heng, I.S., Heptonstall, A. W., Herrera, V., Hewitson, M., Hild, S., Hoak, D., Hodge, K. A., Holt, K., Hong, T., Hooper, S., Hosken, D. J., Hough, J., Howell, E. J., Hughey, B., Husa, S., Huttner, S.H., Ingram, D. R., Inta, R., Isogai, T., Ivanov, A., Johnson, W. W., Jones, D. I., Jones, G., Jones, R., Ju, L., Kalmus, P., Kalogera, V., Kandhasamy, S., Kanner, J. B., Katsavounidis, E., Katzman, W., Kawabe, K., Kawamura, S., Kawazoe, F., Kells, W., Kelner, M., Keppel, D. G., Khalaidovski, A., Khalili, F. Y., Khazanov, E. A., Kim, N., Kim, H., King, P. J., Kinzel, D. L., Kissel, J. S., Klimenko, S., Kondrashov, V., Kopparapu, R., Koranda, S., Korth, W. Z., Kozak, D., Kringel, V., Krishnamurthy, S., Krishnan, B., Kuehn, G., Kumar, R., Kwee, P., Landry, M., Lantz, B., Lastzka, N., Lazzarini, A., Leaci, P., Leong, J., Leonor, I., Li, J., Lindquist, P. E., Lockerbie, N. A., Lodhia, D., Lormand, M., Lu, P., Luan, J., Lubinski, M., Lück, H., Lundgren, A. P., MacDonald, E., Machenschalk, B., MacInnis, M., Mageswaran, M., Mailand, K., Mandel, I., Mandic, V., Marandi, A., Márka, S., Márka, Z., Maros, E., Martin, I.W., Martin, R. M., Marx, J. N., Mason, K., Matichard, F., Matone, L., Matzner, R. A., Mavalvala, N., McCarthy, R., McClelland, D. E., McGuire, S. C., McIntyre, G., McIver, J., McKechan, D. J. A., Meadors, G., Mehmet, M., Meier, T., Melatos, A., Melissinos, A. C., Mendell, G., Mercer, R. A., Meshkov, S., Messenger, C., Meyer, M. S., Miao, H., Miller, J., Mino, Y., Mitrofanov, V. P., Mitselmakher, G., Mittleman, R., Miyakawa, O., Moe, B., Moesta, P., Mohanty, S. D., Moraru, D., Moreno, G., Mossavi, K., Mow-Lowry, C. M., Mueller, G., Mukherjee, S., Mullavey, A., Müller-Ebhardt, H., Munch, J., Murphy, D., Murray, P.G., Nash, T., Nawrodt, R., Nelson, J., Newton, G., Nishizawa, A., Nolting, D., Nuttall, L., O'Reilly, B., O'Shaughnessy, R., Ochsner, E., O'Dell, J., Ogin, G. H., Oldenburg, R. G., Osthelder, C., Ott, C. D., Ottaway, D. J., Ottens, R. S., Overmier, H., Owen, B. J., Page, A., Pan, Y., Pankow, C., Papa, M. A., Patel, P., Pedraza, M., Pekowsky, L., Penn, S., Peralta, C., Perreca, A., Phelps, M., Pickenpack, M., Pinto, I. M., Pitkin, M., Pletsch, H. J., Plissi, M.V., Podkaminer, J., Pöld, J., Postiglione, F., Predoi, V., Price, L. R., Prijatelj, M., Principe, M., Privitera, S., Prix, R., Prokhorov, L., Puncken, O., Quetschke, V., Raab, F. J., Radkins, H., Raffai, P., Rakhmanov, M., Ramet, C. R., Rankins, B., Mohapatra, S. R. P., Raymond, V., Redwine, K., Reed, C. M., Reed, T., Reid, S., Reitze, D. H., Riesen, R., Riles, K., Roberts, P., Robertson, N. A., Robinson, C., Robinson, E. L., Roddy, S., Rollins, J., Romano, J. D., Romie, J. H., Röver, C., Rowan, S., Rüdiger, A., Ryan, K., Sakata, S., Sakosky, M., Salemi, F., Salit, M., Sammut, L., Sancho de la Jordana, L., Sandberg, V., Sannibale, V., Santamaría, L., Santiago-Prieto, I., Santostasi, G., Saraf, S., Sathyaprakash, B. S., Sato, S., Saulson, P. R., Savage, R., Schilling, R., Schlamminger, S., Schnabel, R., Schofield, R. M. S., Schulz, B., Schutz, B. F., Schwinberg, P., Scott, J., Scott, S. M., Searle, A. C., Seifert, F., Sellers, D., Sengupta, A. S., Sergeev, A., Shaddock, D. A., Shaltev, M., Shapiro, B., Shawhan, P., Shihan Weerathunga, T., Shoemaker, D. H., Sibley, A., Siemens, X., Sigg, D., Singer, A., Singer, L., Sintes, A. M., Skelton, G., Slagmolen, B. J. J., Slutsky, J., Smith, R., Smith, J. R., Smith, M. R., Smith, N. D., Somiya, K., Sorazu, B., Soto, J., Speirits, F.C., Stein, A. J., Steinlechner, J., Steinlechner, S., Steplewski, S., Stefszky, M., Stochino, A., Stone, R., Strain, K.A., Strigin, S., Stroeer, A. S., Stuver, A. L., Summerscales, T. Z., Sung, M., Susmithan, S., Sutton, P. J., Szokoly, G. P., Talukder, D., Tanner, D. B., Tarabrin, S. P., Taylor, J. R., Taylor, R., Thomas, P., Thorne, K. A., Thorne, K. S., Thrane, E., Thüring, A., Tokmakov, K. V., Torres, C., Torrie, C.I., Traylor, G., Trias, M., Tseng, K., Ugolini, D., Urbanek, K., Vahlbruch, H., Vaishnav, B., Vallisneri, M., Van Den Broeck, C., van der Sluys, M. V., van Veggel, A.A., Vass, S., Vaulin, R., Vecchio, A., Veitch, J., Veitch, P. J., Veltkamp, C., Villar, A. E., Vorvick, C., Vyachanin, S. P., Waldman, S. J., Wallace, L., Wanner, A., Ward, R. L., Wei, P., Weinert, M., Weinstein, A. J., Weiss, R., Wen, L., Wen, S., Wessels, P., West, M., Westphal, T., Wette, K., Whelan, J. T., Whitcomb, S. E., White, D., Whiting, B. F., Wilkinson, C., Willems, P. A., Williams, H. R., Williams, L., Willke, B., Winkelmann, L., Winkler, W., Wipf, C. C., Wiseman, A. G., Woan, G., Wooley, R., Worden, J., Yablon, J., Yakushin, I., Yamamoto, K., Yamamoto, H., Yang, H., Yeaton-Massey, D., Yoshida, S., Yu, P., Zanolin, M., Zhang, L., Zhang, Z., Zhao, C., Zotov, N., Zucker, M. E., Zweizig, J., Bizouard, M. A., Dietz, A., Guidi, G. M., and Was, M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering; College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Research Centre: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research
• Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• ISSN (Online): 1538-4357