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Exploring the Environment of the most powerful Explosions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2016

Antonino Cucchiara
Affiliation:
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, email: antonino.cucchiara@nasa.gov
Mark Rafelski
Affiliation:
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, email: antonino.cucchiara@nasa.gov
Michele Fumagalli
Affiliation:
Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK Carnegie Observatories, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA
Daniel Kocevski
Affiliation:
NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, email: antonino.cucchiara@nasa.gov
Jason X. Prochaska
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
Ryan J. Cooke
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA
G. D. Becker
Affiliation:
Kavli Institute for Cosmology and Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HA, UK
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Abstract

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More than 60 GRBs at z ≳ 1.5 reside in the vicinity of dense, cold gas as probed by the measured neutral hydrogen via afterglow absorption spectroscopy. We present the largest sample of GRB-DLAs to date in comparison with a sample of DLAs along quasars: the metallicity of the GRB hosts represents a unique tool to understand if this particular subset of galaxies can be the key ingredient for GRB formation (and massive stars) at any redshift as well as the overall cosmic star-formation rate. We show that GRB-DLAs live in a metal enriched environment, especially at z ≳ 4, likely the result of recent intense star formation and/or SNe episodes. We also derive that our metallicity measurements are broadly consistent with a mild metallicity bias for the GRB formation.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2016 

References

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