Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful tracers of star-forming galaxies. We have defined a homogeneous sub-sample of 69 Swift GRB-selected galaxies spanning a very wide redshift range. ...Special attention has been devoted to making the sample optically unbiased through simple and well-defined selection criteria based on the high-energy properties of the bursts and their positions on the sky. In this paper, we present the survey design and summarize the results of our observing program conducted at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) aimed at obtaining the most basic properties of galaxies in this sample, including a catalog of R and Ksubs magnitudes and redshifts. Seven hosts have detections of the Ly alpha emission line and we can exclude an early indication that Ly alpha emission is ubiquitous among GRB hosts, but confirm that Ly alpha is stronger in GRB-selected galaxies than in flux-limited samples of Lyman break galaxies.
Soft X-ray absorption in excess of Galactic is observed in the afterglows of most gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), but the correct solution to its origin has not been arrived at after more than a decade of ...work, preventing its use as resolve this long-standing problem and find that absorption by He in the GRB's host H II region is responsible for most of the absorption. We conclude that the absorption of X-rays in GRB afterglows is caused by He in the H II region hosting the GRB. While dust is destroyed and metals are stripped of all of their electrons by the GRB to great distances, the abundance of He saturates the He-ionizing UV continuum much closer to the GRB, allowing it to remain in the neutral or singly-ionized state. Helium X-ray absorption explains the correlation with total gas, the lack of strong evolution with redshift, as well as the absence of dust, metal or hydrogen absorption features in the optical-UV spectra.
We discuss the results of the analysis of multi-wavelength data for the afterglows of GRB 081007 and GRB 090424, two bursts detected by Swift. One of them, GRB 081007, also shows a spectroscopically ...confirmed supernova, SN 2008hw, which resembles SN 1998bw in its absorption features, while the maximum magnitude may be fainter, up to 0.7 mag, than observed in SN 1998bw. Bright optical flashes have been detected in both events, which allows us to derive solid constraints on the circumburst-matter density profile. This is particularly interesting in the case of GRB 081007, whose afterglow is found to be propagating into a constant-density medium, yielding yet another example of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) clearly associated with a massive-star progenitor which did not sculpt the surroundings with its stellar wind. There is no supernova component detected in the afterglow of GRB 090424, likely due to the brightness of the host galaxy, comparable to the Milky Way. We show that the afterglow data are consistent with the presence of both forward- and reverse-shock emission powered by relativistic outflows expanding into the interstellar medium. The absence of optical peaks due to the forward shock strongly suggests that the reverse-shock regions should be mildly magnetized. The initial Lorentz factor of outflow of GRB 081007 is estimated to be Gamma ~ 200, while for GRB 090424 a lower limit of Gamma > 170 is derived. We also discuss the prompt emission of GRB 081007, which consists of just a single pulse. We argue that neither the external forward-shock model nor the shock-breakout model can account for the prompt emission data and suggest that the single-pulse-like prompt emission may be due to magnetic energy dissipation of a Poynting-flux-dominated outflow or to a dissipative photosphere.
We present the discovery and monitoring of the optical transient (OT) associated with GRB 020410. The fading OT was found by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations taken 28 and 65 days after burst ...at a position consistent with the X-ray afterglow, making this the first time that the optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) has been discovered by an orbiting observatory. Subsequent reexamination of early ground-based observations revealed that a faint OT was present 6 hr after burst, confirming the source association with GRB 020410. A deep nondetection after one week requires that the OT rebrightened between day 7 and day 28, and further late-time HST data taken approximately 100 days after burst imply that it is very red (F sub( upsilon ) proportional to upsilon super(-2.7)). We compare both the flux and color of the excess with supernova models and show that the data are best explained by the presence of a Type Ib/c supernova at a redshift z approximately 0.5, which occurred roughly coincident with the day of the GRB.
We present near-infrared (NIR) and optical observations of the afterglow of GRB 030115. Discovered in an infrared search at Kitt Peak 5 hr after the burst trigger, this afterglow is the faintest ever ...observed in the R band at such an early epoch and exhibits very red colors, with R - K - 6. The optical magnitude of the afterglow of GRB 030115 is fainter than many upper limits for other bursts, suggesting that without early NIR observations it would have been classified as a "dark" burst. Both the color and optical magnitude of the afterglow are likely due to dust extinction at moderate redshift z > 2 and indicate that at least some optical afterglows are very faint due to dust along the line of sight. Multicolor Hubble Space Telescope observations were also taken of the host galaxy and the surrounding field. Photometric redshifts imply that the host and a substantial number of faint galaxies in the field are at z 6 2.5. The overdensity of galaxies is sufficiently great that GRB 030115 may have occurred in a rich high-redshift cluster. The host galaxy shows extremely red colors (R - K = 5) and is the first GRB host to be classified as an extremely red object (ERO). Some of the galaxies surrounding the host also show very red colors, while the majority of the cluster are much bluer, indicating ongoing unobscured star formation. As it is thought that much of high-redshift star formation occurs in highly obscured environments, it may well be that GRB 030115 represents a transition object, between the relatively unobscured afterglows seen to date and a population of objects that are very heavily extinguished, even in the NIR.
This article covers ten years of GRB follow-ups by the Spanish BOOTES stations: 71 follow-ups providing 23 detections. Follow-ups by BOOTES-1B from 2005 to 2008 were given in a previous article and ...are here reviewed and updated, and additional detection data points are included as the former article merely stated their existence. The all-sky cameras CASSANDRA have not yet detected any GRB optical afterglows, but limits are reported where available.
In these proceedings, we summarise the exploration so far of the relationship between the afterglow luminosity (measured at rest frame 200s; log L 200 s ) and average afterglow decay rate (measured ...from rest frame 200s onwards, α > 200 s ) of long duration Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs), first reported in the optical/UV light curves of GRB afterglows. We show that this correlation is also present in the X-ray afterglows of GRBs as observed by Swift-XRT. We explore how the parameters of the correlation observed in both the X-ray and optical/UV light curves relate to each other and the prompt emission phase and whether these correlations are consistent with predictions of the standard afterglow model. We find that the observed correlations are consistent with a common underlying physical mechanism producing GRBs and their afterglows regardless of the detailed temporal behaviour. However, a basic afterglow model has difficulty explaining all the observed correlations. This leads us to briefly discuss alternative more complex models.
ABSTRACT We present the first polarimetric observations of a Type I superluminous supernova (SLSN). LSQ14mo was observed with VLT/FORS2 at five different epochs in the V band, with the observations ...starting before maximum light and spanning 26 days in the rest frame (z = 0.256). During this period, we do not detect any statistically significant evolution ( ) in the Stokes parameters. The average values we obtain, corrected for interstellar polarization in the Galaxy, are Q = −0.01% ( 0.15%) and U = −0.50% ( 0.14%). This low polarization can be entirely due to interstellar polarization in the SN host galaxy. We conclude that, at least during the period of observations and at the optical depths probed, the photosphere of LSQ14mo does not present significant asymmetries, unlike most lower-luminosity hydrogen-poor SNe Ib/c. Alternatively, it is possible that we may have observed LSQ14mo from a special viewing angle. Supporting spectroscopy and photometry confirm that LSQ14mo is a typical SLSN I. Further studies of the polarization of Type I SLSNe are required to determine whether the low levels of polarization are a characteristic of the entire class and to also study the implications for the proposed explosion models.
Broad-band (ultraviolet to near-infrared) observations of the intense gamma ray burst GRB 990123 started ∼8.5 hours after the event and continued until 18 February 1999. When combined with other ...data, in particular from the Robotic Telescope and Transient Source Experiment (ROTSE) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), evidence emerges for a smoothly declining light curve, suggesting some color dependence that could be related to a cooling break passing the ultraviolet-optical band at about 1 day after the high-energy event. The steeper decline rate seen after 1.5 to 2 days may be evidence for a collimated jet pointing toward the observer.
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