Chasing Long-duration GRBs with MeerKAT

Long-duration Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most energetic explosions in the Universe, are ideal probes of extreme relativistic astrophysics. Observations and modeling of their X-ray to radio afterglow radiation provide crucial clues to understanding particle acceleration in relativistic shocks, explosion and jet launching mechanisms, and the nature of GRB progenitors. Such multi-wavelength studies have previously been hamstrung by the lack of sensitivity of radio facilities. The new synergy between MeerKAT, the VLA, and ALMA has breached a new frontier in GRB studies. I will describe results from five years of MeerKAT observations of GRBs, demonstrating their incredible impact in breaking parameter degeneracies, discovering elusive reverse shock signatures, and uncovering unexpected, new physics in the Universe’s most extreme transients.