GRB 090423 at a redshift of z~8.1
Abstract
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBSs) are produced by rare types of massive stellar explosions. Their rapidly fading afterglows are often bright enough at optical wavelengths, that they are detectable up to cosmological distances. Hirtheto, the highest known redshift for a GRB was z=6.7, for GRB 080913, and for a galaxy was z=6.96. Here we report observations of GRB 090423 and the near-infrared spectroscopic measurement of its redshift z=8.1^{+0.1}_{-0.3}. This burst happened when the Universe was only ~4% of its current age. Its properties are similar to those of GRBs observed at low/intermediate redshifts, suggesting that the mechanisms and progenitors that gave rise to this burst about 600 million years after the Big Bang are not markedly different from those producing GRBs ~10 billion years later.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0906.1578,
title = {GRB 090423 at a redshift of z~8.1},
author = {R. Salvaterra and M. Della Valle and S. Campana and G. Chincarini and S. Covino and P. D'Avanzo and A. Fernandez-Soto and C. Guidorzi and F. Mannucci and R. Margutti and C. C. Thoene and L. A. Antonelli and S. D. Barthelmy and M. De Pasquale and V. D'Elia and F. Fiore and D. Fugazza and L. K. Hunt and E. Maiorano and S. Marinoni and F. E. Marshall and E. Molinari and J. Nousek and E. Pian and J. L. Racusin and L. Stella and L. Amati and G. Andreuzzi and G. Cusumano and E. E. Fenimore and P. Ferrero and P. Giommi and D. Guetta and S. T. Holland and K. Hurley and G. L. Israel and J. Mao and C. B. Markwardt and N. Masetti and C. Pagani and E. Palazzi and D. M. Palmer and S. Piranomonte and G. Tagliaferri and V. Testa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0906.1578},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Published in Nature. The astro-ph paper includes the main text (8 pages, 2 figures) and supplementary material (13 pages, 6 figures)