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https://hdl.handle.net/2440/49562
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Type: | Journal article |
Title: | Detection of GRB 060927 at z=5.47: Implications for the use of Gamma-Ray bursts as probes of the end of the dark ages |
Author: | Rowell, G. |
Citation: | The Astrophysical Journal: an international review of astronomy and astronomical physics, 2007; 669(Nov):1-9 |
Publisher: | Univ Chicago Press |
Issue Date: | 2007 |
ISSN: | 0004-637X 0004-637X |
Statement of Responsibility: | A. E. Ruiz-Velasco... G. Rowell...et al. |
Abstract: | We report on follow-up observations of the gamma-ray burst GRB 060927 using the robotic ROTSE-IIIa telescope and a suite of larger aperture ground-based telescopes. An optical afterglow was detected 20 s after the burst, the earliest rest-frame detection of optical emission from any GRB. Spectroscopy performed with the VLT about 13 hr after the trigger shows a continuum break at λ ≈ 8070 Å, produced by neutral hydrogen absorption at z ≈ 5.6. We also detect an absorption line at 8158 Å, which we interpret as Si II λ1260 at z = 5.467. Hence, GRB 060927 is the second most distant GRB with a spectroscopically measured redshift. The shape of the red wing of the spectral break can be fitted by a damped Lyα profile with a column density with log (NH /cm-2) = 22.50 ±0.15. We discuss the implications of this work for the use of GRBs as probes of the end of the dark ages and draw three main conclusions: (1) GRB afterglows originating from z ≳ 6 should be relatively easy to detect from the ground, but rapid near-infrared monitoring is necessary to ensure that they are found; (2) the presence of large H I column densities in some GRB host galaxies at z > 5 makes the use of GRBs to probe the reionization epoch via spectroscopy of the red damping wing challenging; and (3) GRBs appear crucial to locate typical star-forming galaxies at z > 5, and therefore the type of galaxies responsible for the reionization of the universe. © 2007. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. |
Description: | Copyright © Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing Limited 2009 |
DOI: | 10.1086/521546 |
Published version: | http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0004-637X/669/1/1 |
Appears in Collections: | Aurora harvest 5 Chemistry and Physics publications |
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