GRBs as Probes of the IGM
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- 作者：Antonino Cucchiara ; Tonomori Totani ; Nial Tanvir
- 关键词：Gamma ; ray bursts ; Interstellar medium ; Intergalactic medium ; Re ; ionization ; Cosmology
- 刊名：Space Science Reviews
- 出版年：2016
- 出版时间：December 2016
- 年：2016
- 卷：202
- 期：1-4
- 页码：143-158
- 全文大小：
- 刊物类别：Physics and Astronomy
- 刊物主题：Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics); Planetology; Aerospace Technology and Astronautics; Astrophysics and Astroparticles;
- 出版者：Springer Netherlands
- ISSN：1572-9672
- 卷排序：202
文摘
Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most powerful explosions known, capable of outshining the rest of gamma-ray sky during their short-lived prompt emission. Their cosmological nature makes them the best tool to explore the final stages in the lives of very massive stars up to the highest redshifts. Furthermore, studying the emission from their low-energy counterparts (optical and infrared) via rapid spectroscopy, we have been able to pin down the exact location of the most distant galaxies as well as placing stringent constraints on their host galaxies and intervening systems at low and high-redshift (e.g. metallicity and neutral hydrogen fraction). In fact, each GRB spectrum contains absorption features imprinted by metals in the host interstellar medium (ISM) as well as the intervening intergalactic medium (IGM) along the line of sight. In this chapter we summarize the progress made using a large dataset of GRB spectra in understanding the nature of both these absorbers and how GRBs can be used to study the early Universe, in particular to measure the neutral hydrogen fraction and the escape fraction of UV photons before and during the epoch of re-ionization.