Heavy element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST

Levan, Andrew and Gompertz, Benjamin P. and Salafia, Om Sharan and Bulla, Mattia and Burns, Eric and Hotokezaka, Kenta and Izzo, Luca and Lamb, Gavin P. and Malesani, Daniele B. and Oates, Samantha R. and Ravasio, Maria Edvige and Escorial, Alicia Rouco and Schneider, Benjamin and Sarin, Nikhil and Schulze, Steve and Tanvir, Nial R. and Ackley, Kendall and Anderson, Gemma and Brammer, Gabriel B. and Christensen, Lise and Dhillon, Vikram S. and Evans, Phil A. and Fausnaugh, Michael and Fong, Wen-fai and Fruchter, Andrew S. and Fryer, Chris and Fynbo, Johan P. U. and Gaspari, Nicola and Heintz, Kasper E. and Hjorth, Jens and Kennea, Jamie A. and Kennedy, Mark R. and Laskar, Tanmoy and Leloudas, Giorgos and Mandel, Ilya and Martin-Carrillo, Antonio and Metzger, Brian D. and Nicholl, Matt and Nugent, Anya and Palmerio, Jesse T. and Pugliese, Giovanna and Rastinejad, Jillian and Rhodes, Lauren and Saccardi, Andrea and Smartt, Stephen J. and Stevance, Heloise F. and Tohuvavohu, Aaron and Horst, Alexander van der and Vergani, Susanna D. and Watson, Darach and Barclay, Thomas and Bhirombhakdi, Kornpob and Breedt, Elmé and Breeveld, Alice A. and Brown, Alexander J. and Campana, Sergio and Chrimes, Ashley A. and D’Avanzo, Paolo and D’Elia, Valerio and Pasquale, Massimiliano De and Dyer, Martin J. and Galloway, Duncan K. and Garbutt, James A. and Hartmann, Dieter H. and Jakobsson, Páll and Kerry, Paul and Kouveliotou, Chryssa and Langeroodi, Danial and Floc’h, Emeric Le and Leung, James K. and Littlefair, Stuart P. and Munday, James and O’Brien, Paul and Parsons, Steven G. and Pelisoli, Ingrid and Sahman, David I. and Salvaterra, Ruben and Sbarufatti, Boris and Steeghs, Danny and Tagliaferri, Gianpiero and Thöne, Christina C. and Postigo, Antonio de Ugarte and Kann, David Alexander (2024) Heavy element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST. Nature, 626. pp. 737-741. ISSN 0028-0836

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Text (2303.12912) - Accepted Version
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Text (2303.12912) - Accepted Version
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Text (2303.12912)
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Abstract

The mergers of binary compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes are of central interest to several areas of astrophysics, including as the progenitors of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) 1, sources of high-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) 2 and likely production sites for heavy-element nucleosynthesis by means of rapid neutron capture (the r-process) 3. Here we present observations of the exceptionally bright GRB 230307A. We show that GRB 230307A belongs to the class of long-duration GRBs associated with compact object mergers 4–6 and contains a kilonova similar to AT2017gfo, associated with the GW merger GW170817 (refs. 7–12). We obtained James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mid-infrared imaging and spectroscopy 29 and 61 days after the burst. The spectroscopy shows an emission line at 2.15 microns, which we interpret as tellurium (atomic mass A = 130) and a very red source, emitting most of its light in the mid-infrared owing to the production of lanthanides. These observations demonstrate that nucleosynthesis in GRBs can create r-process elements across a broad atomic mass range and play a central role in heavy-element nucleosynthesis across the Universe.