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Finding high-redshift gamma-ray bursts in tandem near-infrared and optical surveys

Nature Astronomy volume 6, pages 1101–1104 (2022)Cite this article

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Gamma-ray bursts are linked to the most distant objects in the Universe, but detecting them is a rare event. With a dedicated near-infrared telescope to observe in tandem with the optical Vera Rubin Observatory, ten or so high-redshift (z ≳ 6) gamma-ray bursts could potentially be detected every year.

The race for the most distant object in the Universe has involved long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), star-forming galaxies and quasars. Gamma-ray bursts took a temporary lead with the discovery1,2 of GRB 090423 at a redshift z = 8.2, but the current record-holder3 is the galaxy GN-z11 at z = 11.0, although the recently released first images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed a number of distant candidates in the range z ∼9−15 (ref. 4, for example). However, galaxies and quasars are very faint (GN-z11 has a magnitude H = 26), hampering the study of the physical properties of the primordial Universe. On the other hand, GRB afterglows are brighter by a factor of ≳100, but with the drawback of being transients, and lasting only for 1–2 days. When bright (for example, H = 18.6 mag at 7 hr from the explosion as observed for GRB 0904231,2), GRB spectroscopic afterglow studies could provide independent constraints on the reionization history, on the ionizing photon escape fraction and on the cosmic history of metal enrichment. Gamma-ray bursts could be used to select high-z galaxies independently from their brightness, thus sampling the galaxy luminosity function below the sensitivity limit of deep surveys. They also are expected to provide important information about the nature of the stellar population in the first galaxies by, for example, identifying explosions from the first population of metal-free stars (Population III stars), showing the presence of their distinctive metal enrichment signature and measuring the stellar initial mass function evolution at early epochs.

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Fig. 1: Rates of high-redshift GRBs depending on the nIR limiting magnitude and redshift.
Fig. 2: Prompt emission isotropic equivalent energy versus redshift of the simulated population of events with H <21.

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Acknowledgements

S. C. thanks M. G. Bernardini, P. D’Avanzo, A. Melandri, P. Schipani, G. Tagliaferri and F. Vitali for useful conversations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INAF, Osservatorio astronomico di Brera, Merate, Italy

    S. Campana, G. Ghirlanda, M. Landoni, G. Pariani & M. Riva

  2. INFN, Sezione di Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy

    G. Ghirlanda

  3. INAF, Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica cosmica, Milano, Italy

    R. Salvaterra

  4. STFC UK Astronomy Technology Centre, The Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK

    O. A. Gonzalez

  5. INAF, Osservatorio astrofisico di Torino, Pino Torinese, Italy

    A. Riva

  6. Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

    S. J. Smartt

  7. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    N. R. Tanvir

  8. GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, CNRS, Meudon, France

    S. D. Vergani

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Campana, S., Ghirlanda, G., Salvaterra, R. et al. Finding high-redshift gamma-ray bursts in tandem near-infrared and optical surveys. Nat Astron 6, 1101–1104 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01804-x

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