Gamma-ray bursts

An intense discharge of gamma rays, which range in duration from tenth of a second to tens of seconds and occur from sources widely distributed over the sky. The radio wave afterglow from the burst can last more than a year, making long-term observations of the sources possible. The favored hypothesis is that they are produced by a relativistic jet created by the merger of two compact objects (specifically two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole). Mergers of this kind are also expected to create significant quantities of neutron-rich radioactive species, whose decay should result in a faint transient, known as a kilonova, in the days following the burst. Indeed, it is speculated that this mechanism may be the predominant source of stable r-process elements in the Universe. Recent calculations suggest that much of the kilonova energy should appear in the near-infrared spectral range, because of the high optical opacity created by these heavy r-process elements.