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Probing the warm intergalactic medium through absorption against gamma-ray burst X-ray afterglows

Astrophysical Journal, ISSN: 1538-4357, Vol: 544, Issue: 1 PART 2, Page: L7-L10
2000
  • 17
    Citations
  • 0
    Usage
  • 2
    Captures
  • 0
    Mentions
  • 0
    Social Media
Metric Options:   Counts1 Year3 Year

Metrics Details

  • Citations
    17
    • Citation Indexes
      17
  • Captures
    2

Article Description

Gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows close to their peak intensity are among the brightest X-ray sources in the sky. Despite their fast power-law-like decay, when fluxes are integrated from minutes up to hours after the GRB event, the corresponding number counts (log N-log F relation) far exceed those of any other high-redshift (z > 0.5) source, the flux of which is integrated over the same time interval. We discuss how to use X-ray afterglows of GRBs as distant beacons to probe the warm (10 K < T < 10 K) intergalactic matter in filaments and outskirts of clusters of galaxies by means of absorption features, the "X-ray forest." According to current cosmological scenarios, this matter may comprise 30%-40% of the baryons in the universe at z < 1. Present-generation X-ray spectrometers such as those on Chandra and XMM-Newton can detect it along most GRBs' lines of sight, provided afterglows are observed soon enough (within hours) after the burst. A dedicated medium-sized X-ray telescope (effective area ≲0.1 m) with pointing capabilities similar to that of Swift (minutes) and high spectral resolution (E/ΔE ≳ 300) would be very well suited to exploit the new diagnostic and study the physical conditions in the universe at the critical moment when structure is being formed.

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