aa31475-17.pdf (2.37 MB)
The host galaxy of the short GRB 111117A at z=2.211 Impact on the short GRB redshift distribution and progenitor channels
journal contribution
posted on 2019-09-10, 15:20 authored by J Selsing, T Kruehler, D Malesani, P D'Avanzo, S Schulze, SD Vergani, J Palmerio, J Japelj, B Milvang-Jensen, D Watson, P Jakobsson, J Bolmer, Z Cano, S Covino, V D'Elia, A de Ugarte Postigo, JPU Fynbo, A Gomboc, KE Heintz, L Kaper, AJ Levan, S Piranomonte, G Pugliese, R Sanchez-Ramirez, M Sparre, NR Tanvir, CC Thone, K WiersemaIt is notoriously difficult to localize short γ-ray bursts (sGRBs) and their hosts to measure their redshifts. These measurements, however, are critical for constraining the nature of sGRB progenitors, their redshift distribution, and the r-process element enrichment history of the universe. Here we present spectroscopy of the host galaxy of GRB 111117A and measure its redshift to be z = 2.211. This makes GRB 111117A the most distant high-confidence short duration GRB detected to date. Our spectroscopic redshift supersedes a lower, previously estimated photometric redshift value for this burst. We use the spectroscopic redshift, as well as new imaging data to constrain the nature of the host galaxy and the physical parameters of the GRB. The rest-frame X-ray derived hydrogen column density, for example, is the highest compared to a complete sample of sGRBs and seems to follow the evolution with redshift as traced by the hosts of long GRBs. From the detection of Lyα emission in the spectrum, we are able to constrain the escape fraction of Lyα in the host. The host lies in the brighter end of the expected sGRB host brightness distribution at z = 2.211, and is actively forming stars. Using the observed sGRB host luminosity distribution, we find that between 43% and 71% of all Swift-detected sGRBs have hosts that are too faint at z ~ 2 to allow for a secure redshift determination. This implies that the measured sGRB redshift distribution could be incomplete at high redshift. The high z of GRB 111117A is evidence against a lognormal delay-time model for sGRBs through the predicted redshift distribution of sGRBs, which is very sensitive to high-z sGRBs. From the age of the universe at the time of GRB explosion, an initial neutron star (NS) separation of a0 < 3.1 R⊙ is required in the case where the progenitor system is a circular pair of inspiralling NSs. This constraint excludes some of the longest sGRB formation channels for this burst.
Funding
TK acknowledges support through the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award to P. Schady. SDV is supported by the French National Research Agency (ANR) under contract ANR-16-CE31-0003 BEaPro. PDA and SCo acknowledge support from ASI grant I/004/11/3. JJ acknowledges support from NOVA and a NWO-FAPESP grant for advanced instrumentation in astronomy. NRT and KW acknowledge support from STFC Consolidated Grant ST/N000757/1. CT acknowledges support from a Spanish National Research Grant of Excellence under project AYA 2014-58381-P and funding associated with a Ramòn y Cajál fellowship under grant number RyC-2012-09984. AdUP acknowledges support from a Ramón y Cajal fellowship, a BBVA Foundation Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through project AYA2014-58381-P. ZC acknowledges support from the Spanish research project AYA 2014-58381-P and support from Juan de la Cierva Incorporación fellowships IJCI-2014-21669. RSR acknowledges AdUP’s BBVA Foundation Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators and support from the Italian Space Agency (ASI) through Contract n. 2015-046-R.0 and from the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme under the AHEAD project (grant agreement n. 654215). This research made use of Astropy, a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2013). The analysis and plotting was achieved using the Python-based packages Matplotlib (Hunter 2007), Numpy, and Scipy (van der Walt et al. 2011), along with other community-developed packages. This work made use of observations obtained with the Italian 3.6 m Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated on the island of La Palma by the Fundación Galileo Galilei of the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica) at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. Based on data from the GTC Archive at CAB (INTA-CSIC) and on observations obtained at the Gemini Obs
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Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2018, 616, A48Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and AstronomyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
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Astronomy and AstrophysicsPublisher
EDP Sciences for European Southern Observatory (ESO)issn
1432-0746Acceptance date
2018-02-08Copyright date
2018Available date
2019-09-10Publisher DOI
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https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/abs/2018/08/aa31475-17/aa31475-17.htmlNotes
Based on observations collected at ESO/VLT under programme 088.A-0051 and 091.D-0904, at TNG under programme A24TAC_38, at Gemini North under programme GN-2011B-Q-10 and GTC under programme GTC43-11B. All data, code, and calculations related to the paper along with the paper itself are available at https://github.com/jselsing/GRB111117ALanguage
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Science & TechnologyPhysical SciencesAstronomy & Astrophysicsgamma-ray burst: individual: GRB 111117Agamma-ray burst: generalgalaxies: high-redshiftbinaries: generalX-rays: burststechniques: imaging spectroscopyGAMMA-RAY BURSTSLYMAN BREAK GALAXIESCOLUMN DENSITIESCOMPLETE SAMPLESTAR-FORMATIONLIGHT CURVESSTELLARENVIRONMENTAFTERGLOWSDUST
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