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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.
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