Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2003-06-19
Astron.Astrophys.406:L63,2003
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A Letters
Scientific paper
10.1051/0004-6361:20030931
We report on the results of a search for Ly-alpha emission from the host galaxy of the z=2.140 GRB 011211 and other galaxies in its surrounding field. We detect Ly-alpha emission from the host as well as from six other galaxies in the field. The restframe equivalent width of the Ly-alpha line from the GRB 011211 host is about 21 AA. This is the fifth detection of Ly-alpha emission out of five possible detections from GRB host galaxies, strongly indicating that GRB hosts, at least at high redshifts, are Ly-alpha emitters. This is intriguing as only about 25% of the Lyman-Break selected galaxies at similar redshifts have Ly-alpha emission lines with restframe equivalent width larger than 20 AA. Possible explanations are i) a preference for GRB progenitors to be metal-poor as expected in the collapsar model, ii) an optical afterglow selection bias against dusty hosts, and iii) a higher fraction of Ly-alpha emitters at the faint end of the luminosity function for high-z galaxies. Of these, the current evidence seems to favour i).
Andersen Michael I.
Fruchter Andrew S.
Fynbo Johan P. U.
Gorosabel Javier
Hjorth Jens
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