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Cited by 624

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 22 of the 22 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

A γ-ray burst at a redshift of z ≈ 8.2

Open access
Tanvir, N. R., Fox, D. B., Levan, A. J., Berger, E., Wiersema, K., Fynbo, J. P. U., Cucchiara, A., Krühler, T., Gehrels, N., Bloom, J. S., Greiner, J., Evans, P. A., Rol, E., Olivares, F., Hjorth, J., Jakobsson, P., Farihi, J., Willingale, R., Starling, R. L. C., Cenko, S. B., Perley, D., Maund, J. R., Duke, J., Wijers, R. A. M. J., Adamson, A. J., Allan, A., Bremer, M. N., Burrows, D. N., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cavanagh, B., de Ugarte Postigo, A., Dopita, M. A., Fatkhullin, T. A., Fruchter, A. S., Foley, R. J., Gorosabel, J., Kennea, J., Kerr, T., Klose, S., Krimm, H. A., Komarova, V. N., Kulkarni, S. R., Moskvitin, A. S., Mundell, C. G., Naylor, T., Page, K., Penprase, B. E., Perri, M., Podsiadlowski, P., Roth, K., Rutledge, R. E., Sakamoto, T., Schady, P., Schmidt, B. P., Soderberg, A. M., Sollerman, J., Stephens, A. W., Stratta, G., Ukwatta, T. N., Watson, D., Westra, E., Wold, T., Wolf, C.·2009·Nature
DOI 10.1038/nature08459
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Abstract

It is thought that the first generations of massive stars in the Universe were an important, and quite possibly dominant, source of the ultra-violet radiation that reionized the hydrogen gas in the intergalactic medium (IGM); a state in which it has remained to the present day. Measurements of cosmic microwave background anisotropies suggest that this phase-change largely took place in the redshift range z=10.8 +/- 1.4, while observations of quasars and Lyman-alpha galaxies have shown that the process was essentially completed by z=6. However, the detailed history of reionization, and characteristics of the stars and proto-galaxies that drove it, remain unknown. Further progress in understanding requires direct observations of the sources of ultra-violet radiation in the era of reionization, and mapping the evolution of the neutral hydrogen fraction through time. The detection of galaxies at such redshifts is highly challenging, due to their intrinsic faintness and high luminosity distance, whilst bright quasars appear to be rare beyond z~7. Here we report the discovery of a gamma-ray burst, GRB 090423, at redshift z=8.26 -0.08 +0.07. This is well beyond the redshift of the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy (z=6.96) and quasar (z=6.43). It establishes that massive stars were being produced, and dying as GRBs, ~625 million years after the Big Bang. In addition, the accurate position of the burst pinpoints the location of the most distant galaxy known to date. Larger samples of GRBs beyond z~7 will constrain the evolving rate of star formation in the early universe, while rapid spectroscopy of their afterglows will allow direct exploration of the progress of reionization with cosmic time.

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Metadata

Authors
Tanvir, N. R., Fox, D. B., Levan, A. J., Berger, E., Wiersema, K., Fynbo, J. P. U., Cucchiara, A., Krühler, T., Gehrels, N., Bloom, J. S., Greiner, J., Evans, P. A., Rol, E., Olivares, F., Hjorth, J., Jakobsson, P., Farihi, J., Willingale, R., Starling, R. L. C., Cenko, S. B., Perley, D., Maund, J. R., Duke, J., Wijers, R. A. M. J., Adamson, A. J., Allan, A., Bremer, M. N., Burrows, D. N., Castro-Tirado, A. J., Cavanagh, B., de Ugarte Postigo, A., Dopita, M. A., Fatkhullin, T. A., Fruchter, A. S., Foley, R. J., Gorosabel, J., Kennea, J., Kerr, T., Klose, S., Krimm, H. A., Komarova, V. N., Kulkarni, S. R., Moskvitin, A. S., Mundell, C. G., Naylor, T., Page, K., Penprase, B. E., Perri, M., Podsiadlowski, P., Roth, K., Rutledge, R. E., Sakamoto, T., Schady, P., Schmidt, B. P., Soderberg, A. M., Sollerman, J., Stephens, A. W., Stratta, G., Ukwatta, T. N., Watson, D., Westra, E., Wold, T., & Wolf, C.
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2009-10
Volume
461
Issue
7268
Pages
1254-1257
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/nature08459
OpenAlex
W2103267716
Cited by
624
References
22
FWCI
43.01
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A γ-ray burst at a redshift of z ≈ 8.2. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature08459
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Tanvir, N. R., Fox, D. B., Levan, A. J., Berger, E., Wiersema, K., Fynbo, J. P. U., Cucchiara, A., Krühler, T., Gehrels, N., Bloom, J. S., Greiner, J., Evans, P. A., Rol, E., Olivares, F., Hjorth, J., Jakobsson, P., Farihi, J., Willingale, R., Starling, R. L. C., . . . Wolf, C. (2009). A γ-ray burst at a redshift of z ≈ 8.2. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08459

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