Highly ionized metals as probes of the circumburst gas in the natal regions of gamma-ray bursts

Heintz, K. E.; Watson, D.; Jakobsson, P.; Fynbo, J. P. U.; Bolmer, J.; Arabsalmani, M.; Cano, Z.; Covino, S.; D’Elia, V.; Gomboc, A.; Japelj, J.; Kaper, L.; Krogager, J.-K.; Pugliese, G.; Sánchez-Ramírez, R.; Selsing, J.; Sparre, Martin; Tanvir, N. R.; Thöne, C. C.; Postigo, A. de Ugarte; Vergani, S. D.

doi:10.1093/mnras/sty1447

Cited by 33 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…The abundances derived for the high-ionisation lines as well as HI and the value for the metallicity are in good agreement with Heintz et al (2018) who used the same data set but a different Voigt-profile fitting code. Using the total column density of S ii we derive a metallicity of 3 [S/H] = −1.15 ± 0.04 for the host galaxy.…”

Section: Column Densities and Abundances In The Host Galaxysupporting

confidence: 78%

“…We fit the absorption features using Voigt profiles to determine the column densities of all species at the redshift of the GRB, which shows three different velocity components within a range of 200 km s −1 . This was done independently for low-and high-ionisation lines, which showed a slightly different velocity structure, as has been seen before (Heintz et al 2018), and also for fine-structure and metastable levels, which are expected to be indirectly excited by the UV emission of the GRB.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thöne et al 2008Thöne et al , 2013Hartoog et al 2015). Heintz et al (2018) made a complete study of high-ionisation lines from the X-shooter GRB sample, including data from this burst. They found two classes of high-ionisation systems: those at the bulk velocity of the host absorption and those blueshifted by a few 100 km s −1 , the latter being associated with systems with log(N H /cm −2 ) < 21.5.…”

Section: Dynamical Analysis Of the Different Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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X-shooter and ALMA spectroscopy of GRB 161023A

Postigo

Thöne

Bolmer

et al. 2018

A&A

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Context. Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are produced during the dramatic deaths of massive stars with very short lifetimes, meaning that they explode close to the birth place of their progenitors. Over a short period they become the most luminous objects observable in the Universe, being perfect beacons to study high-redshift star-forming regions. Aims. We aim to use the afterglow of GRB 161023A at a redshift z = 2.710 as a background source to study the environment of the explosion and the intervening systems along its line of sight. Methods. For the first time, we complement ultraviolet (UV), optical and near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy with millimetre spectroscopy using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), which allows us to probe the molecular content of the host galaxy. The X-shooter spectrum shows a plethora of absorption features including fine-structure and metastable transitions of Fe, Ni, Si, C, and O. We present photometry ranging from 43 s to over 500 days after the burst. Results. We infer a host-galaxy metallicity of [Zn/H] = −1.11 ± 0.07, which, corrected for dust depletion, results in [X/H] = −0.94 ± 0.08. We do not detect molecular features in the ALMA data, but we derive limits on the molecular content of log(N CO /cm −2 ) < 15.7 and log(N HCO+ /cm −2 ) < 13.2, which are consistent with those that we obtain from the optical spectra, log(N H 2 /cm −2 ) < 15.2 and log(N CO /cm −2 ) < 14.5. Within the host galaxy, we detect three velocity systems through UV, optical and NIR absorption spectroscopy, all with levels that were excited by the GRB afterglow. We determine the distance from these systems to the GRB to be in the range between 0.7 and 1.0 kpc. The sight line to GRB 161023A shows nine independent intervening systems, most of them with multiple components. Conclusions. Although no molecular absorption was detected for GRB 161023A, we show that GRB millimetre spectroscopy is now feasible and is opening a new window on the study of molecular gas within star-forming galaxies at all redshifts. The most favoured lines of sight for this purpose will be those with high metallicity and dust.

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Section: Column Densities and Abundances In The Host Galaxysupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dynamical Analysis Of the Different Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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X-shooter and ALMA spectroscopy of GRB 161023A

Postigo

Thöne

Bolmer

et al. 2018

A&A

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“…It is worth noting that examination of N V column densities, albeit in a much smaller sample, also show no trend with z (Heintz et al 2018). A lack of redshift trend is also found for dust extinction, other than large extinction at z ∼ 1.5−2 (Covino et al 2013), and a drop in extinction beyond z > 3.5 (Zafar et al 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Cosmological Evolution of the Absorption of γ-Ray Burst X-Ray Afterglows

Rahin

Behar

2019

ApJ

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X-ray absorption of γ-ray burst (GRB) afterglows is prevalent yet poorly understood. X-ray derived neutral hydrogen column densities (N H ) of GRB X-ray afterglows show an increase with redshift, which might give a clue for the origin of this absorption. We use more than 350 X-ray afterglows with spectroscopic redshift (z) from the Swift XRT repository as well as over 100 Ly α absorption measurements in z > 1.6 sources. The observed trend of the average optical depth τ at 0.5 keV is consistent with both a sharp increase of host N H (z), and an absorbing diffuse intergalactic medium, along with decreasing host contribution to τ . We analyze a sub-sample of high-z GRBs with N H derived both from the X-ray afterglow and the Ly α line. The increase of X-ray derived N H (z) is contrasted by no such increase in the Ly α derived column density. We argue that this discrepancy implies a lack of association between the X-ray and Ly α absorbers at high-z. This points towards the X-ray absorption at high z being dominated by an intervening absorber, which lends credibility to an absorbing intergalactic medium contribution.

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“…Column densities from X-ray absorption are generally higher, even after accounting for the foreground absorption by the Milky Way (e.g. Galama & Wijers 2001;Watson et al 2007;Campana et al 2010;Schady et al 2011;Heintz et al 2018). This can have several reasons, starting from not probing the same gas phases and spatial regions of the host galaxy to several other effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the pattern of the Galactic HI foreground of GRBs with the ATCA

Dénes

Jones

Tóth

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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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.

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Highly ionized metals as probes of the circumburst gas in the natal regions of gamma-ray bursts

Cited by 33 publications

References 88 publications

X-shooter and ALMA spectroscopy of GRB 161023A

X-shooter and ALMA spectroscopy of GRB 161023A

Cosmological Evolution of the Absorption of γ-Ray Burst X-Ray Afterglows

Exploring the pattern of the Galactic HI foreground of GRBs with the ATCA

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