Nature and GRBs

1. Nature and GRBs Leslie Sage Senior Editor, Physical Sciences Nature 2008 Nanjing GRB Conference

2. Summary • Nature publishes ~7% of submissions • we want only the best, most important work • When a field is new, almost any new data are interesting/important • As the field matures, more care must be taken in selecting papers • GRB research is moving into the mature era

3. Top 20 GRB papers as tracked by ADS (16 May 2008 search) • Woosley 1993ApJ.405..273W -- 797 • Galama et al. 1998Natur.395..670G – 740 • Woosley & MacFadyen 1999ApJ.524..262M – 714 • Band et al. 1993ApJ.413..281B – 667 • Sari et al. 1998ApJ.497L..17S – 645 • Piran 1999PhR.314..575P –615 • Paczynski 1998ApJ.494L..45P – 603 • Frail et al. 2001ApJ.562L..55F – 599 • Costa et al. 1997Natur.387..783C – 540 • Paczynski 1986ApJ.308L..43P – 540 • van Paradijs et al. 1997Natur.386.686v – 519 • Hjorth et al. 2003Natur.423..847H – 514 • Meszaros & Rees 1997ApJ.476..232M – 512 • Stanek et al. 2003ApJ.591L..17S – 502 • Kouveliotou et al. 1993ApJ.413L..101K – 498 • Metzger et al. 1997Natur.387..878M -- 486 • Meegan et al. 1992Natur.355..143M -- 479 • Klebesadel et al. 1973ApJ.182L..85K -- 439 • Sari et al. 1999ApJ.519L..17S -- 436 • Narayan et al. 1992ApJ.395L..83N -- 430

5. Observational papers that made a difference(from my perspective – a non-GRB person– so apols to anyone who feels left out) • Klebesadel et al. (1973) – of course! • Meegan et al. (1992) – isotropic distribution • Kouveliotou et al. (1993) – two classes of GRBs • van Paradijs et al. (1997) & Costa et al. (1997) – the first counterparts • Metzger et al. (1998) – first redshift • Galama et al. (1998), Kulkarni et al. (1998), Bloom et al. (1999), Hjorth et al. (2003) & Stanek et al. (2003) – supernova connection • Frail et al. (2001) – common energy scale (I count rejecting this as my worst GRB mistake) • Gehrels et al. (2005), Villasenor et al. (2005), Fox et al. (2005), Hjorth et al. (2005) – first counterparts to the short-hard bursts

6. Influential theory papers • Meszaros & Rees (1997), Rees & Meszaros (1992), (1994), Sari et al. (1998), Piran (1999) – fireball model • Eichler et al. (1989) – coalescing neutron stars • Woosley (1993), Iwamoto et al. (1998), MacFadyen & Woosley (1999) – supernova connection • Usov (1992) – making a comeback?

7. Mistakes I’ve made (published)(though receiving strong recommendations from referees) • Burst from a regenerative source (Liang & Kargatis 1996) • Lines (Reeves et al. 2002) • Strong polarization (Coburn & Boggs 2003)

8. GRBs as a ‘mature’ field • Connection of long bursts to massive stars seems inescapable (although 060614 was atypical and perhaps a new type/class?) • Redshifts typically are high (mean z~2.8, 7% with z>5; Jakobsson et al. 2006) • Counterparts to short bursts seen, and a few redshifts determined

9. Ways to deal with a mature field • Eliminating overlapping authorship, which encourages submission of “me too” papers • Discouraging “me too” papers (papers with similar data and conclusions) • Need for speed is less evident (van Paradijs et al. 1997 submitted 25 March, accepted 29 March, published 17 April 1997)

10. Big problems remaining(if you can answer these, contact me!) • What exactly is the central engine, and how long does it last? • Is a GRB baryonic or magnetic? • What really causes the short bursts? i.e. How can we tell if it’s a merger? • What is the redshift distribution of the short bursts? • Where are the Swift iron (and other) lines? • What causes the variation in burst optical (and radio) luminosities? • Are we missing very high-z bursts? (z>10, i.e. Amati et al. 2002)

11. As scientists, we receive no training in how to write good papers. We read the literature, and repeat the mistakes others make!

13. Answer the following questions to write a good Nature paper • Why is the topic interesting? • What big problems are there in the field? • What have you done? • How does the work advance us towards a solution of one of the big problems?

14. Nature papers must be comprehensible to a wide audience • first paragraph of a Letter should be no higher than the level of an introductory undergraduate class • bulk of the paper at the level of a first-year graduate course in the field

16. A Nature paper should • report a fundamental new physical insight, or • announce a startling, unexpected or difficult-to-understand discovery, or • have striking conceptual novelty • be very important to your field • being correct is insufficient!

17. What does Nature look for in a theory paper? • Authors must be prepared to defend the position that their paper provides the right (or at least best available) explanation • They should also make a prediction that could be used to refute the model within the next few years

18. Nature’s preprint server policy • Posting to ArXiv is allowedas a communication between scientists • If journalists contact you based on the web posting, simply ask them to contact you again a week before publication • Journalists can write whatever they want based upon a posting –there is no embargo when posted! • See editorial: 4 Dec 1997; 390, 427

19. Nature can help the community • We can publish news items, commentaries and editorials that highlight issues of importance • Contact me!

20. Contact Nature in advance of submission • I can be reached at ‘l.sage@naturedc.com’ or +1 202 626 2511 • pre-submission inquiries via the web ‘mts-nature.nature.com’ (I prefer to deal directly with authors, though many editors do not) • be prepared to answer questions about the significance of the results