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Wiley, Monthly Notice- Royal Astronomical Society -Letters-, 1(505), p. L41-L45, 2021

DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slab046

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Late-time radio observations of the short GRB 200522A: constraints on the magnetar model

Journal article published in 2021 by G. Bruni ORCID, B. O’Connor ORCID, T. Matsumoto, E. Troja ORCID, T. Piran, L. Piro, R. Ricci
Distributing this paper is prohibited by the publisher
Distributing this paper is prohibited by the publisher

Full text: Unavailable

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Preprint: archiving forbidden
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Postprint: archiving restricted
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Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

ABSTRACT GRB 200522A is a short duration gamma-ray burst (GRB) at redshift z= 0.554 characterized by a bright infrared counterpart. A possible, although not unambiguous, interpretation of the observed emission is the onset of a luminous kilonova powered by a rapidly rotating and highly magnetized neutron star, known as magnetar. A bright radio flare, arising from the interaction of the kilonova ejecta with the surrounding medium, is a prediction of this model. Whereas the available data set remains open to multiple interpretations (e.g. afterglow, r-process kilonova, magnetar-powered kilonova), long-term radio monitoring of this burst may be key to discriminate between models. We present our late-time upper limit on the radio emission of GRB 200522A, carried out with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array at 288 d after the burst. For kilonova ejecta with energy Eej $≈ 10^{53}\, \rm erg$, as expected for a long-lived magnetar remnant, we can already rule out ejecta masses $M_{\rm ej}\lesssim 0.03\, \mathrm{M}_⊙$ for the most likely range of circumburst densities n ≳ 10−3 cm−3. Observations on timescales of ≈ 3–10 yr after the merger will probe larger ejecta masses up to Mej ∼ 0.1 M⊙, providing a robust test to the magnetar scenario.