Probing Pre-galactic Metal Enrichment with High-Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract

We explore high-redshift gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as promising tools to probe pre-galactic metal enrichment. We utilize the bright afterglow of a Pop III GRB exploding in a primordial dwarf galaxy as a luminous background source, and calculate the strength of metal absorption lines that are imprinted by the first heavy elements in the intergalactic medium (IGM). To derive the GRB absorption line diagnostics, we use an existing highly-resolved simulation of the formation of a first galaxy which is characterized by the onset of atomic hydrogen cooling in a halo with virial temperature >10^4 K. We explore the unusual circumburst environment inside the systems that hosted Pop III stars, modeling the density evolution with the self-similar solution for a champagne flow. For minihalos close to the cooling threshold, the circumburst density is roughly proportional to (1+z) with values of about a few cm^{-3}. In more massive halos, corresponding to the first galaxies, the density may be larger, n>100 cm^{-3}. The resulting afterglow fluxes may be detectable with the JWST and VLA in the near-IR and radio wavebands, respectively, out to redshift z>20. We predict that the maximum of the afterglow emission shifts from near-IR to millimeter bands with peak fluxes from mJy to Jy at different observed times. GRBs are ideal tools for probing the metal enrichment in the early IGM, due to their high luminosities and featureless power-law spectra. The metals in the first galaxies produced by the first supernova (SN) explosions are likely to reside in low-ionization stages. We show that if the afterglow can be observed sufficiently early, analysis of the metal lines can distinguish whether the first heavy elements were produced in a PISN, or a core-collapse (Type II) SN, thus constraining the initial mass function of the first stars.

13 pages (emulateapj), 13 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (54)

• Formation of the First Stars
• Titans of the Early Universe: The Prato Statement on the Origin of the First Supermassive Black Holes
• Fast Radio Burst/Gamma-Ray Burst Cosmography
• Gamma-ray Burst Cosmology
• The Impact of Star Formation and Gamma-Ray Burst Rates at High Redshift on Cosmic Chemical Evolution and Reionization
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions I: Pair-Instability Supernovae
• When did Population III star formation end?
• Measuring dark energy with the $E_{\mathrm{iso}}-E_{\mathrm{p}}$ correlation of gamma-ray bursts using model-independent methods
• Legacy of star formation in the pre-reionization universe
• An unexpectedly low-redshift excess of Swift gamma-ray burst rate
• Baseline Metal Enrichment from Population III Star Formation in Cosmological Volume Simulations
• Preserving chemical signatures of primordial star formation in the first low-mass stars
• GRB 120521C at z~6 and the Properties of High-redshift GRBs
• The high-redshift star formation rate derived from GRBs: possible origin and cosmic reionization
• Measuring cosmological parameters with a luminosity-time correlation of gamma-ray bursts
• Simulating high-z Gamma-ray Burst host galaxies
• Finding the First Cosmic Explosions II: Core-Collapse Supernovae
• The first galaxies: simulating their feedback-regulated assembly
• The role of faint population III supernovae in forming CEMP stars in ultra-faint dwarf galaxies
• Accessing the population of high redshift Gamma Ray Bursts
• Detection strategies for the first supernovae with JWST
• Illuminating the Primeval Universe with Type IIn Supernovae
• $E_{\mathrm{iso}}$-$E_{\mathrm{p}}$ correlation of gamma ray bursts: calibration and cosmological applications
• The First Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Universe
• Assembly of supermassive black hole seeds
• The high-redshift gamma-ray burst GRB140515A
• Angular momentum transfer in primordial discs and the rotation of the first stars
• Long GRBs are metallicity-biased tracers of star formation: evidence from host galaxies and redshift distribution
• Abundance anomalies in metal-poor stars from Population III supernova ejecta hydrodynamics
• The Host Galaxies of Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A VLA Study of High-redshift GRBs I - Multi-wavelength Observations and Modeling of GRB 140311A
• Perspectives on Gamma-Ray Burst Physics and Cosmology with Next Generation Facilities
• Probing the initial mass function of the first stars with transients
• Rapidly rotating Population III stellar models as a source of primary nitrogen
• Gamma-ray bursts and Population III stars
• Jet-powered supernovae of $\sim 10^5{M}_{\odot }$ population III stars are observable by $Euclid$, $WFIRST$, $WISH$, and $JWST$
• PopIII signatures in the spectra of PopII/I GRBs
• Calibration of gamma-ray bursts luminosity correlations using gravitational waves as standard sirens
• Machine-z: Rapid Machine Learned Redshift Indicator for Swift Gamma-ray Bursts
• The Potential for Detecting Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows from Population III Stars with the Next Generation of Infrared Telescopes
• Impact of Population III homogeneous stellar evolution on early cosmic reionisation
• Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A hide-and-seek game: Looking for Population III stars during the Epoch of Reionization through the HeII$\lambda$1640 line
• Metal Enrichment in the Reionization Epoch
• GRBs and fundamental physics
• Metal enrichment signatures of the first stars on high-z DLAs
• Similar radiation mechanism in gamma-ray bursts and blazars: evidence from two luminosity correlations
• Signatures of Rapidly Rotating Stars with Chemically Homogeneous Evolution in the First Galaxies
• Probing the assembly of dwarf galaxies through cosmic time with damped Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption spectroscopy
• Probing the Nature of the First Galaxies with JWST and ALMA
• Population III star formation in the presence of turbulence, magnetic fields and ionizing radiation feedback
• Detection of Low-Redshift Excess in Supernova-Linked Gamma-Ray Bursts
• How far have metals reached? Reconciling statistical constraints and enrichment models at reionization
• Exploration of the high-redshift universe enabled by THESEUS