Related papers: The Redshift of GRB 970508
GRB 970508 is the second gamma-ray burst (GRB) for which an optical afterglow has been detected. It is the first GRB for which a distance scale has been determined: absorption and emission features in spectra of the optical afterglow place…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows have been proposed as an excellent probe to study the evolution of cosmic star formation, the reionization of the intergalactic medium, and the metal enrichment history of the universe, since the…
We present the discovery of an absorption-line redshift of z = 2.609 for GRB 090426, establishing the first firm lower limit to a redshift for a gamma-ray burst with an observed duration of <2 s. With a rest-frame burst duration of T_90z =…
A recent spectrum of the optical afterglow of GRB 970508 suggests that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are cosmological in origin and it is of crucial importance to derive an accurate distance to each burst. If GRBs occur near their host galaxies…
Gamma-ray bursts have been proved to be detectable up to distances much larger than any other astrophysical object, providing the most effective way, complementary to ordinary surveys, to study the high redshift universe. To this end, we…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) serve as powerful probes of the early Universe, with their luminous afterglows revealing the locations and physical properties of star forming galaxies at the highest redshifts, and potentially locating first…
GRB 971214 is the third gamma ray burst for which an optical afterglow has been detected. I show that the spectrum of this afterglow (optical and X-ray) is inconsistent with the relativistic blast-wave model unless a significant source of…
We report on follow-up observations of the GRB 060927 using the 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…
Afterglow, or long-lived emission, has now been detected from about a dozen well-positioned gamma-ray bursts. Distance determinations made by measuring optical emission lines from the host galaxy, or absorption lines in the afterglow…
The gamma-ray burst of 28 February 1997 (GRB 970228) ushered in the discovery of the afterglow phenomenon. Despite intense study of the host galaxy, however, the nature of the host and the distance to the burst eluded the community. Here we…
We present optical and near-infrared observations of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 050904. We derive a photometric redshift z = 6.3, estimated from the presence of the Lyman break falling between the I and J filters. This is by…
The redshifts of the gamma ray burst (GRB) GRB 011211 has been determined as 2.14 from several absorption lines seen in the spectrum of its optical afterglow. The spectrum of its X-ray afterglow exhibited several emission lines,and their…
Since January 1997, we have monitored 15 GRB fields, detecting 6 optical/IR afterglows. For GRB 970508, we derive a power-law decay exponent alpha = -1.19 (R-band). The luminosity of the host galaxy L relative to the characteristic…
We present low-resolution VLT spectroscopy of the afterglow of the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) 991216, 011211 and 021211. Our spectrum of GRB991216 is the only optical spectrum for this afterglow. It shows two probable absorption systems at…
We present late-time imaging and spectroscopic observations of the optical transient (OT) of gamma-ray burst (GRB) 970508. Imaging observations roughly 200 and 300 days after the burst provide unambiguous evidence for the flattening of the…
The detection of GeV photons from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has important consequences for the interpretation and modelling of these most-energetic cosmological explosions. The full exploitation of the high-energy measurements relies,…
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…
In 2000, Lamb and Reichart predicted that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows occur in sufficient numbers and at sufficient brightnesses at very high redshifts (z > 5) to eventually replace quasars as the preferred probe of element…
The optical afterglow of long-duration GRB 071003 is among the brightest yet to be detected from any GRB, with R ~ 12 mag in KAIT observations starting 42 s after the GRB trigger, including filtered detections during prompt emission.…
We detect the optical afterglow and host galaxy of GRB 070714B. Our observations of the afterglow show an initial plateau in the lightcurve for approximately the first 5 to 25 minutes, then steepening to a powerlaw decay with index alpha=…