Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST

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

doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06759-1

Heavy-element production in a compact object merger observed by JWST

Nature. 2024 Feb;626(8000):737-741. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06759-1. Epub 2023 Oct 25.

Authors

Andrew J Levan^{1

2}, Benjamin P Gompertz^{3

4}, Om Sharan Salafia^{5

6}, Mattia Bulla^{7

8

9}, Eric Burns¹⁰, Kenta Hotokezaka^{11

12}, Luca Izzo^{13

14}, Gavin P Lamb^{15

16}, Daniele B Malesani^{17

18

19}, Samantha R Oates^{3

4}, Maria Edvige Ravasio^{17

5}, Alicia Rouco Escorial²⁰, Benjamin Schneider²¹, Nikhil Sarin^{22

23}, Steve Schulze²³, Nial R Tanvir¹⁶, Kendall Ackley²⁴, Gemma Anderson²⁵, Gabriel B Brammer^{18

19}, Lise Christensen^{18

19}, Vikram S Dhillon^{26

27}, Phil A Evans¹⁶, Michael Fausnaugh^{21

28}, Wen-Fai Fong^{29

30}, Andrew S Fruchter³¹, Chris Fryer^{32

33

34

35}, Johan P U Fynbo^{18

19}, Nicola Gaspari¹⁷, Kasper E Heintz^{18

19}, Jens Hjorth¹³, Jamie A Kennea³⁶, Mark R Kennedy^{37

38}, Tanmoy Laskar^{17

39}, Giorgos Leloudas⁴⁰, Ilya Mandel^{41

42}, Antonio Martin-Carrillo⁴³, Brian D Metzger^{44

45}, Matt Nicholl⁴⁶, Anya Nugent^{29

30}, Jesse T Palmerio⁴⁷, Giovanna Pugliese⁴⁸, Jillian Rastinejad^{29

30}, Lauren Rhodes⁴⁹, Andrea Rossi⁵⁰, Andrea Saccardi⁴⁷, Stephen J Smartt^{46

49}, Heloise F Stevance^{49

51}, Aaron Tohuvavohu⁵², Alexander van der Horst³⁵, Susanna D Vergani⁴⁷, Darach Watson^{18

19}, Thomas Barclay⁵³, Kornpob Bhirombhakdi³¹, Elmé Breedt⁵⁴, Alice A Breeveld⁵⁵, Alexander J Brown²⁶, Sergio Campana⁵, Ashley A Chrimes¹⁷, Paolo D'Avanzo⁵, Valerio D'Elia^{56

57}, Massimiliano De Pasquale⁵⁸, Martin J Dyer²⁶, Duncan K Galloway^{41

42}, James A Garbutt²⁶, Matthew J Green⁵⁹, Dieter H Hartmann⁶⁰, Páll Jakobsson⁶¹, Paul Kerry²⁶, Chryssa Kouveliotou³⁵, Danial Langeroodi¹³, Emeric Le Floc'h⁶², James K Leung^{42

63

64}, Stuart P Littlefair²⁶, James Munday^{24

65}, Paul O'Brien¹⁶, Steven G Parsons²⁶, Ingrid Pelisoli²⁴, David I Sahman²⁶, Ruben Salvaterra⁶⁶, Boris Sbarufatti⁵, Danny Steeghs^{24

42}, Gianpiero Tagliaferri⁵, Christina C Thöne⁶⁷, Antonio de Ugarte Postigo⁶⁸, David Alexander Kann⁶⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astrophysics, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands. a.levan@astro.ru.nl.
² Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. a.levan@astro.ru.nl.
³ Institute for Gravitational Wave Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
⁴ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
⁵ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy.
⁶ INFN - Sezione di Milano Bicocca, Milano, Italy.
⁷ Department of Physics and Earth Science, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
⁸ INFN - Sezione di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
⁹ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico d'Abruzzo, Teramo, Italy.
¹⁰ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
¹¹ Research Center for the Early Universe, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo, Japan.
¹² Kavli IPMU (WPI), UTIAS, The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan.
¹³ DARK, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen N, Denmark.
¹⁴ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy.
¹⁵ Astrophysics Research Institute, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK.
¹⁶ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
¹⁷ Department of Astrophysics, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics (IMAPP), Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
¹⁸ Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁹ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen N, Denmark.
²⁰ European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), Madrid, Spain.
²¹ Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
²² Nordita, Stockholm University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
²³ The Oskar Klein Centre, Department of Physics, Stockholm University, AlbaNova University Center, Stockholm, Sweden.
²⁴ Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
²⁵ International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia.
²⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
²⁷ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
²⁸ Department of Physics & Astronomy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA.
²⁹ Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
³¹ Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA.
³² Center for Theoretical Astrophysics, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
³³ Department of Astronomy, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
³⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
³⁵ Department of Physics, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.
³⁶ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.
³⁷ School of Physics, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
³⁸ Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
³⁹ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
⁴⁰ DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark.
⁴¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁴² ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
⁴³ School of Physics and Centre for Space Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
⁴⁴ Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Department of Physics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
⁴⁵ Center for Computational Astrophysics, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA.
⁴⁶ Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK.
⁴⁷ GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Meudon, France.
⁴⁸ Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴⁹ Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
⁵⁰ INAF - Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio, Bologna, Italy.
⁵¹ Department of Physics, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
⁵² Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵³ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA.
⁵⁴ Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
⁵⁵ Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St. Mary, UK.
⁵⁶ Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) Space Science Data Center (SSDC), Rome, Italy.
⁵⁷ INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Rome, Italy.
⁵⁸ Department of Mathematics, Physics, Informatics and Earth Sciences, University of Messina, Polo Papardo, Messina, Italy.
⁵⁹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
⁶⁰ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA.
⁶¹ Centre for Astrophysics and Cosmology, Science Institute, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland.
⁶² CEA, IRFU, DAp, AIM, Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité, Sorbonne Paris Cité, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁶³ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁶⁴ CSIRO Space and Astronomy, Epping, New South Wales, Australia.
⁶⁵ Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Santa Cruz de La Palma, Spain.
⁶⁶ INAF IASF-Milano, Milano, Italy.
⁶⁷ Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Ondřejov, Czechia.
⁶⁸ Artemis, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Université Côte d'Azur, Nice, France.
⁶⁹ Hessian Research Cluster ELEMENTS, Giersch Science Center (GSC), Goethe University Frankfurt, Campus Riedberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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.