Outshining the quasars at reionisation: The X-ray spectrum and lightcurve of the redshift 6.29 Gamma-Ray Burst GRB050904

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dc.creatorWatson, D.
dc.creatorReeves, J. N.
dc.creatorHjorth, J.
dc.creatorFynbo, J. P. U.
dc.creatorJakobsson, P.
dc.creatorPedersen, K.
dc.creatorSollerman, J.
dc.creatorCerón, J. M. Castro
dc.creatorMcBreen, S.
dc.creatorFoley, S.
dc.date2005-09-21
dc.date2005-12-08
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T06:41:12Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T06:41:12Z
dc.descriptionGamma-ray burst (GRB) 050904 is the most distant X-ray source known, at z=6.295, comparable to the farthest AGN and galaxies. Its X-ray flux decays, but not as a power-law; it is dominated by large variability from a few minutes to at least half a day. The spectra soften from a power-law with photon index Gamma=1.2 to 1.9, and are well-fit by an absorbed power-law with possible evidence of large intrinsic absorption. There is no evidence for discrete features, in spite of the high signal-to-noise ratio. In the days after the burst, GRB 050904 was by far the brightest known X-ray source at z>4. In the first minutes after the burst, the flux was >10^{-9} erg cm^-2 s^-1 in the 0.2-10keV band, corresponding to an apparent luminosity >10^5 times larger than the brightest AGN at these distances. More photons were acquired in a few minutes with Swift-XRT than XMM-Newton and Chandra obtained in ~300 ks of pointed observations of z>5 AGN. This observation is a clear demonstration of concept for efficient X-ray studies of the high-z IGM with large area, high-resolution X-ray detectors, and shows that early-phase GRBs are the only backlighting bright enough for X-ray absorption studies of the IGM at high redshift.
dc.descriptionAccepted for publication in ApJL. 5 pages with emulateapj, 3 figures
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509640
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509640
dc.identifierAstrophys.J. 637 (2006) L69-L72
dc.identifierdoi:10.1086/501004
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/101584
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleOutshining the quasars at reionisation: The X-ray spectrum and lightcurve of the redshift 6.29 Gamma-Ray Burst GRB050904
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