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Published March 9, 2006 | public
Journal Article

A photometric redshift of z = 6.39 ± 0.12 for GRB 050904

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows are the most brilliant transient events in the Universe. Both the bursts themselves and their afterglows have been predicted to be visible out to redshifts of z approximately 20, and therefore to be powerful probes of the early Universe. The burst GRB 000131, at z = 4.50, was hitherto the most distant such event identified3. Here we report the discovery of the bright near-infrared afterglow of GRB 050904 (ref. 4). From our measurements of the near-infrared afterglow, and our failure to detect the optical afterglow, we determine the photometric redshift of the burst to be z = 6.29^(+0.11)_(-0.12) (refs 5–7). Subsequently, it was measured spectroscopically to be z = 6.29 ± 0.01, in agreement with our photometric estimate. These results demonstrate that GRBs can be used to trace the star formation, metallicity, and reionization histories of the early Universe.

Additional Information

© 2006 Nature Publishing Group. Received 23 September; accepted 12 December 2005. D.E.R. gratefully acknowledges support from NSF's MRI, CAREER, PREST and REU programmes, NASA's APRA, Swift GI and IDEAS programmes, and especially L. Goodman and H. Cox. D.E.R. also thanks W. Christiansen, B. Carney, and everyone who has worked to make SOAR a reality over the past 19 years. A.L. and N.T. thank B. Cavanagh and A. Adamson of the JAC for their speedy assistance in acquiring and reducing the UKIRT WFCAM data. A.J.C.-T. thanks INTA and CSIC for their support of BOOTES and AYA (including FEDER funds). R.H. and P.K. acknowledge support from GA AV CR and ESA PECS.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023