Lyman continuum leakage in faint star-forming galaxies at redshift z = 3-3.5 probed by gamma-ray bursts

J. B. Vielfaure*, S. D. Vergani, J. Japelj, J. P.U. Fynbo, M. Gronke, K. E. Heintz, D. B. Malesani, P. Petitjean, N. R. Tanvir, V. D'Elia, D. A. Kann, J. T. Palmerio, R. Salvaterra, K. Wiersema, M. Arabsalmani, S. Campana, S. Covino, M. De Pasquale, A. De Ugarte Postigo, F. HammerD. H. Hartmann, P. Jakobsson, C. Kouveliotou, T. Laskar, A. J. Levan, A. Rossi

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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    Abstract

    Context. The identification of the sources that reionized the Universe and their specific contribution to this process are key missing pieces of our knowledge of the early Universe. Faint star-forming galaxies may be the main contributors to the ionizing photon budget during the epoch of reionization, but their escaping photons cannot be detected directly due to inter-galactic medium opacity. Hence, it is essential to characterize the properties of faint galaxies with significant Lyman continuum (LyC) photon leakage up to z ∼ 4 to define indirect indicators allowing analogs to be found at the highest redshift. Aims. Long gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) typically explode in star-forming regions of faint, star-forming galaxies. Through LGRB afterglow spectroscopy it is possible to detect directly LyC photons. Our aim is to use LGRBs as tools to study LyC leakage from faint, star-forming galaxies at high redshift.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numberA30
    JournalAstronomy and Astrophysics
    Volume641
    Number of pages12
    ISSN0004-6361
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2020

    Bibliographical note

    Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

    Keywords

    • Dark ages
    • First stars
    • Galaxies: evolution
    • Galaxies: high-redshift
    • Gamma-ray burst: general
    • Intergalactic medium
    • Reionization

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