Related papers: Variable Ly alpha sheds light on the environment s…
We report the discovery of the optical afterglow (OA) of the long-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 030429, and present a comprehensive optical/near-infrared dataset used to probe the matter at different distance scales, i.e. in the burst…
The aim of this paper is to investigate the environment of gamma ray bursts (GRBs) and the interstellar matter of their host galaxies. We use to this purpose high resolution spectroscopic observations of the afterglow of GRB050922C,…
The reionisation of the Universe is thought to have ended around z~6, as inferred from spectroscopy of distant bright background sources, such as quasars (QSO) and gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Furthermore, spectroscopy of a GRB…
We present optical observations of the short/hard gamma-ray burst GRB 050709, the first such event with an identified optical counterpart. The object is coincident with a weak X-ray source and is located inside a galaxy at redshift z =…
High-redshift gamma-ray bursts have several advantages for the study of the distant universe, providing unique information about the structure and properties of the galaxies in which they exploded. Spectroscopic identification with large…
The bright GRB 050408 was localized by HETE-II near local midnight, enabling an impressive ground-based followup effort as well as space-based followup from Swift. The Swift data from the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) and our own optical photometry…
On 2006 May 5, a four second duration, low energy, ~10^49 erg, Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) was observed, spatially associated with a z=0.0894 galaxy. Here, we report the discovery of the GRB optical afterglow and observations of its environment…
Abundances of galaxies at redshifts z > 4 are difficult to obtain from damped Ly {\alpha} (DLA) systems in the sightlines of quasars (QSOs) due to the Ly {\alpha} forest blanketing and the low number of high-redshift quasars detected.…
Context: The link between the duration of GRBs and the nature of their progenitors remains disputed. Short bursts (with durations of less than ~2 s) are less frequently observed, technically more difficult to localize, and exhibit…
We discuss how gamma-ray burst (GRB) optical afterglows and multiwavelength observations of their host galaxies can be used to obtain information about the relative amounts of star formation happening in optical and submillimetre galaxies.…
Since the discovery of the first short-hard gamma-ray burst afterglows in 2005, the handful of observed events have been found to be embedded in nearby (z < 1), bright underlying galaxies. We present multiwavelength observations of the…
We present the discovery and subsequent spectroscopy with Gemini-North of the optical afterglow of the Swift gamma-ray burst (GRB) 140515A. The spectrum exhibits a well-detected continuum at wavelengths longer than 8915 Angs with a steep…
We discuss two main aspects of the GRB 000301C afterglow (Fynbo et al. 2000, Jensen et al. 2000); its short duration and its possible connection with a Damped Ly-alpha Absorber (DLA). GRB 000301C falls in the short class of bursts, though…
Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are bright, brief flashes of high energy photons that have fascinated scientists for 30 years. They come in two classes: long (>2 s), softspectrum bursts and short, hard events. The major progress to date on…
The gamma-ray burst GRB000210 had the highest gamma-ray peak flux of any event localized by BeppoSAX as yet but it did not have a detected optical afterglow. It is therefore one of the events recently classified as dark GRBs or GHOST (GRB…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmic events occurring at large distances beyond our galaxy. They provide a unique opportunity to study electromagnetic patterns not seen elsewhere. When the collimated GRB outflow interacts with the outer…
Among a number of gamma ray bursts whose host galaxies are known, GRB971214 stands out for its high redshift $z\ge 3$ and the Ly$\alpha$ emission line having a P-Cygni type profile, which is interpreted to be a direct consequence of the…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmologically distributed, very energetic and very transient sources detected in the gamma-ray domain. The identification of their x-ray and optical afterglows allowed so far the redshift measurement of 150…
GRB 970828 was the first well-localized gamma-ray burst (GRB) X-ray afterglow for which no optical afterglow was found despite a prompt, deep search down to R_lim ~ 24.5 mag. We report the discovery of a short-lived radio flare within the…
We present spectropolarimetry observations of GRB 021004 obtained at the ESO VLT. We detect a remarkable increase of the degree of polarization blueward of the host galaxy rest frame Ly-alpha to about 5-10% that corresponds to a decrease in…