GRB 221009A: The BOAT

Eric Burns

;Dmitry Svinkin;Edward Fenimore;D. Alexander Kann;Jos?? Feliciano Ag???? Fern??ndez;Dmitry Frederiks;Rachel Hamburg;Stephen Lesage;Yuri Temiraev;Anastasia Tsvetkova;Elisabetta Bissaldi;Michael S. Briggs;Sarah Dalessi;Rachel Dunwoody;Cori Fletcher;Adam Goldstein;C. Michelle Hui;Boyan A. Hristov;Daniel Kocevski;Alexandra L. Lysenko;Bagrat Mailyan;Joseph Mangan;Sheila McBreen;Judith Racusin;Anna Ridnaia;Oliver J. Roberts;Mikhail Ulanov;Peter Veres;Colleen A. Wilson-Hodge;Joshua Wood

2023-01-01

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Abstract

GRB 221009A has been referred to as the brightest of all time (BOAT). We investigate the veracity of this statement by comparing it with a half century of prompt gamma-ray burst observations. This burst is the brightest ever detected by the measures of peak flux and fluence. Unexpectedly, GRB 221009A has the highest isotropic-equivalent total energy ever identified, while the peak luminosity is at the similar to 99th percentile of the known distribution. We explore how such a burst can be powered and discuss potential implications for ultralong and high-redshift gamma-ray bursts. By geometric extrapolation of the total fluence and peak flux distributions, GRB 221009A appears to be a once-in-10,000-year event. Thus, it is almost certainly not the BOAT over all of cosmic history; it may be the brightest gamma-ray burst since human civilization began.