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

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

Top 20 GRB papers as tracked by ADS (16 May 2008 search) Woosley 1993ApJ W Galama et al. 1998Natur G – 740 Woosley & MacFadyen 1999ApJ M – 714 Band et al. 1993ApJ B – 667 Sari et al. 1998ApJ.497L..17S – 645 Piran 1999PhR P –615 Paczynski 1998ApJ.494L..45P – 603 Frail et al. 2001ApJ.562L..55F – 599 Costa et al. 1997Natur C – 540 Paczynski 1986ApJ.308L..43P – 540 van Paradijs et al. 1997Natur v – 519 Hjorth et al. 2003Natur H – 514 Meszaros & Rees 1997ApJ M – 512 Stanek et al. 2003ApJ.591L..17S – 502 Kouveliotou et al. 1993ApJ.413L..101K – 498 Metzger et al. 1997Natur M Meegan et al. 1992Natur M Klebesadel et al. 1973ApJ.182L..85K Sari et al. 1999ApJ.519L..17S Narayan et al. 1992ApJ.395L..83N

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

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?

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)

GRBs as a ‘mature’ field Connection of long bursts to massive stars seems inescapable (although 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

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 submitted 25 March, accepted 29 March, published 17 April 1997)

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)

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

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?

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

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!

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

Nature’s preprint server policy Posting to ArXiv is allowed as 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

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

Contact Nature in advance of submission I can be reached at or 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