Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

On The Origin Of The Highest Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts, Krzysztof Belczynski, Daniel E. Holz, Chris L. Fryer, Edo Berger, Dieter H. Hartmann, Brain O'Shea

Publications

GRB 080913 and GRB 090423 are the most distant gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) known to date, with spectroscop-ically determined redshifts of z = 6.7 and z = 8.1, respectively. The detection of bursts at this early epoch of the universe significantly constrains the nature of GRBs and their progenitors. We perform population synthesis studies of the formation and evolution of early stars, and calculate the resulting formation rates of short- and long-duration GRBs at high redshift. The peak of the GRB rate from Population II stars occurs at z ∼ 7for a model with efficient/fast mixing of metals, while it is …