Probing the circumstellar medium of GRB afterglows through absorption-line observations

Author(s):  
Hsiao-Wen Chen

A systematic search of Wolf–Rayet wind signatures, as represented by blue-shifted, high-velocity (|Δ v |=1000–5000 km s −1 ) C IV λλ 1548, 1550 absorption doublet has yielded an estimate of 20% for the incidence of these C IV absorbers near the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). This is consistent with what is observed near classical damped Ly α absorbers that have a comparable neutral hydrogen column density as the GRB host galaxies. A detailed ionization analysis of these absorbers, including the associated low-ionization species, shows that the majority in fact originate in foreground galaxies along the sightline, rather than in the vicinity of the GRB afterglows. Taking into account the enhanced afterglow radiation field, the lack of Wolf–Rayet signatures can be applied to constrain the C/He ratio and the density contrast of the winds in the vicinity of GRB progenitor stars.

Author(s):  
H Dénes ◽  
P A Jones ◽  
L V Tóth ◽  
S Zahorecz ◽  
B-C Koo ◽  
...  

Abstract The afterglow of a gamma ray burst (GRB) can give us valuable insight into the properties of its host galaxy. To correctly interpret the spectra of the afterglow we need to have a good understanding of the foreground interstellar medium (ISM) in our own Galaxy. The common practice to correct for the foreground is to use neutral hydrogen (H i) data from the Leiden/Argentina/Bonn (LAB) survey. However, the poor spatial resolution of the single dish data may have a significant effect on the derived column densities. To investigate this, we present new high-resolution H i observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) towards 4 GRBs. We combine the interferometric ATCA data with single dish data from the Galactic All Sky Survey (GASS) and derive new Galactic H i column densities towards the GRBs. We use these new foreground column densities to fit the Swift XRT X-ray spectra and calculate new intrinsic hydrogen column density values for the GRB host galaxies. We find that the new ATCA data shows higher Galactic H i column densities compared to the previous single dish data, which results in lower intrinsic column densities for the hosts. We investigate the line of sight optical depth near the GRBs and find that it may not be negligible towards one of the GRBs, which indicates that the intrinsic hydrogen column density of its host galaxy may be even lower. In addition, we compare our results to column densities derived from far-infrared data and find a reasonable agreement with the H i data.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (S292) ◽  
pp. 190-190
Author(s):  
J. M. Chen ◽  
L. W. Jia ◽  
E. W. Liang

AbstractGRBs are the most luminous events in the Universe. They are detectable from local to high-z universe and may serve as probes for high-z galaxies (e.g., Savaglio et al. 2009; Kewley & Dopita 2002). We compile the observations for 61 GRB host galaxies from literature. Their redshifts range from 0.0085 to 6.295. We present the statistical properties of the GRB host galaxies, including the stellar mass (M*), star-forming rate (SFR), metallicity (Z), extinction (AV), and neutral hydrogen column density (NH). We explore possible correlations among the properties of gamma-ray burst host galaxies and their cosmic evolution with observations of 61 GRB host galaxies. Our results are shown in Figure 1. A clear Z-M* relation is found in our sample, which is Z ~ M0.4. The host galaxies of local GRBs with detection of accompanied supernovae also share the same relation with high-z GRB host galaxies. A trend that a more massive host galaxy tends to have a higher star-formation rate is found. The best linear fit gives a tentative relation, i.e, SFR ~ M0.75. No any correlation is found between AV and NH. A GRB host galaxy at a higher redshift also tends to have a higher SFR. Even in the same redshift, the SFR may vary over three orders of magnitude. The metallicity of the GRB host galaxies is statistically higher than that of the QSO DLAs. The full version of our results please refer to Chen et al. (2012).


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (S333) ◽  
pp. 162-165
Author(s):  
L. V. Tóth ◽  
Y. Doi ◽  
S. Pinter ◽  
T. Kovács ◽  
S. Zahorecz ◽  
...  

AbstractWe estimate the column density of the Galactic foreground interstellar medium (GFISM) in the direction of extragalactic sources. All-sky AKARI FIS infrared sky survey data might be used to trace the GFISM with a resolution of 2 arcminutes. The AKARI based GFISM hydrogen column density estimates are compared with similar quantities based on HI 21cm measurements of various resolution and of Planck results. High spatial resolution observations of the GFISM may be important recalculating the physical parameters of gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies using the updated foreground parameters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 623 ◽  
pp. A92 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Selsing ◽  
D. Malesani ◽  
P. Goldoni ◽  
J. P. U. Fynbo ◽  
T. Krühler ◽  
...  

In this work we present spectra of all γ-ray burst (GRB) afterglows that have been promptly observed with the X-shooter spectrograph until 31/03/2017. In total, we have obtained spectroscopic observations of 103 individual GRBs observed within 48 hours of the GRB trigger. Redshifts have been measured for 97 per cent of these, covering a redshift range from 0.059 to 7.84. Based on a set of observational selection criteria that minimise biases with regards to intrinsic properties of the GRBs, the follow-up effort has been focused on producing a homogeneously selected sample of 93 afterglow spectra for GRBs discovered by the Swift satellite. We here provide a public release of all the reduced spectra, including continuum estimates and telluric absorption corrections. For completeness, we also provide reductions for the 18 late-time observations of the underlying host galaxies. We provide an assessment of the degree of completeness with respect to the parent GRB population, in terms of the X-ray properties of the bursts in the sample and find that the sample presented here is representative of the full Swift sample. We have constrained the fraction of dark bursts to be <28 per cent and confirm previous results that higher optical darkness is correlated with increased X-ray absorption. For the 42 bursts for which it is possible, we have provided a measurement of the neutral hydrogen column density, increasing the total number of published HI column density measurements by ∼33 per cent. This dataset provides a unique resource to study the ISM across cosmic time, from the local progenitor surroundings to the intervening Universe.


1986 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-94
Author(s):  
J.L. Linsky, ◽  
W.B. Landsman ◽  
B.D. Savage ◽  
S.R. Heap ◽  
A.M. Smith ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 865 (2) ◽  
pp. 82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. B. Zhang ◽  
P. Chandra ◽  
Y. F. Huang ◽  
D. Li

2020 ◽  
Vol 495 (4) ◽  
pp. 4782-4799 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan O’Connor ◽  
Paz Beniamini ◽  
Chryssa Kouveliotou

ABSTRACT Observational follow up of well localized short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) has left $20\!-\!30{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the population without a coincident host galaxy association to deep optical and NIR limits (≳26 mag). These SGRBs have been classified as observationally hostless due to their lack of strong host associations. It has been argued that these hostless SGRBs could be an indication of the large distances traversed by the binary neutron star system (due to natal kicks) between its formation and its merger (leading to an SGRB). The distances of GRBs from their host galaxies can be indirectly probed by the surrounding circumburst densities. We show that a lower limit on those densities can be obtained from early afterglow light curves. We find that ${\lesssim}16{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of short GRBs in our sample took place at densities ≲10−4 cm−3. These densities represent the expected range of values at distances greater than the host galaxy’s virial radii. We find that out of the five SGRBs in our sample that have been found to be observationally hostless, none are consistent with having occurred beyond the virial radius of their birth galaxies. This implies one of two scenarios. Either these observationally hostless SGRBs occurred outside of the half-light radius of their host galaxy, but well within the galactic halo, or in host galaxies at moderate to high redshifts (z ≳ 2) that were missed by follow-up observations.


2002 ◽  
Vol 123 (3) ◽  
pp. 1111-1148 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Bloom ◽  
S. R. Kulkarni ◽  
S. G. Djorgovski

2012 ◽  
Vol 545 ◽  
pp. A77 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Rossi ◽  
S. Klose ◽  
P. Ferrero ◽  
J. Greiner ◽  
L. A. Arnold ◽  
...  

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