The Host Galaxy of the Gamma--Ray Burst 971214

Abstract

We report on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the host galaxy of GRB 971214, about four months after the burst. The redshift of the proposed host galaxy at z=3.418, combined with optical and radio observations of the burst afterglow, implies the extremely large isotropic energy release from the burst in gamma-rays of approximately 3x10^53 ergs, some two orders of magnitude higher than the previously commonly assumed numbers. The positional offset between the optical transient observed at the Keck telescope and the centroid of the proposed host galaxy in the HST image is 0.14 -+0.07 arcsec. We find no evidence in our deep HST image for a chance foreground galaxy superposed along the line of sight to the proposed host at z=3.418. The morphology and photometric properties of this galaxy, such as the total flux, morphology, radial surface profile and scale length, are typical as compared to other, spectroscopically confirmed z>3 galaxies.

LaTex, 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJL

References in corpus (4)

• Discovery of the X-Ray Afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst of February 28 1997
• A Large Structure of Galaxies At Redshift z~3 and its Cosmological Implications
• The optical counterpart to gamma-ray burst GRB970228 observed using the Hubble Space Telescope
• The Axis Ratio Distribution of Local and Distant Galaxies

Cited by in corpus (25)

• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Gamma-Ray Bursts
• The Observed Offset Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts from Their Host Galaxies: A Robust Clue to the Nature of the Progenitors
• Are the hosts of Gamma-Ray Bursts sub-luminous and blue galaxies?
• HST and Palomar Imaging of GRB 990123: Implications for the Nature of Gamma-Ray Bursts and their Hosts
• Gamma-ray Bursts - A Puzzle Being Resolved
• Absorption in Gamma Ray Burst afterglows
• The afterglow of the short/intermediate-duration gamma-ray burst GRB 000301C: A jet at z=2.04
• Probing the cosmic star formation using long Gamma-Ray Bursts: New constraints from the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Neutrino, Neutron, and Cosmic Ray Production in the External Shock Model of Gamma Ray Bursts
• On the optical and X-ray afterglows of gamma ray bursts
• Ly-alpha and UV emission from high-redshift GRB hosts: To what extent do GRBs trace star formation?
• Probing the faint end of the Galaxy luminosity function at z=3 with Ly-alpha emission
• Are Starburst Galaxies the Hosts of Gamma-Ray Bursts ?
• The faint-galaxy hosts of gamma-ray bursts
• Gamma-Ray Burst Selected High Redshift Galaxies: Comparison to Field Galaxy Populations to z~3
• Monster in the Dark: The Ultraluminous GRB 080607 and its Dusty Environment
• Was GRB~980329 at z ~ 5?
• HST Observations of the Host Galaxy of GRB970508
• The Host Galaxy of GRB 990712
• Gamma Ray Bursts and Bursters
• Gamma-ray bursts in normal and extreme star-forming galaxies
• The galaxy density environment of gamma-ray burst host galaxies
• GRB 051008: A long, spectrally-hard dust-obscured GRB in a Lyman-Break Galaxy at z ~ 2.8
• Probability for chance coincidence of a gamma-ray burst with a galaxy on the sky