Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 898, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aba4b0
Keywords
Gamma-ray bursts
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [AST-1814782, AST-1909358]
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration from the Space Telescope Science Institute [HST-GO-15606.001-A]
- NASA [NAS5-26555, NAS8-03060]
- Chandra Award [DD7-18095X]
- Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellowship
- European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [725246]
- Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation
- Brinson Foundation
- Moore Foundation
- CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University)
- NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship [AST-1701487]
- NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant - Space Telescope Science Institute [HST-HF2-51403.001-A]
- NOIRLab [GS-2018B-Q-112, GN-2018B-Q-117, GS-2019A-FT-107]
- Northwestern University
- Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA)
- W. M. Keck Observatory [2018B_NW254, 2018B_NW249, 2019A_O329]
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Smithsonian Institution [2018C-UAO-G4, 2019A-UAO-G7, 2020A-UAO-G212-20A]
- Office of the Provost
- Office for Research
- Northwestern University Information Technology
- STFC [ST/S000453/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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We present the discovery of the optical afterglow and host galaxy of the Swift short-duration gamma-ray burst (SGRB) GRB 181123B. Observations with Gemini-North starting approximate to 9.1 hr after the burst reveal a faint optical afterglow with i approximate to 25.1 mag at an angular offset of 0.'' 59 +/- 0.'' 16 from its host galaxy. Using grizYJHK observations, we measure a photometric redshift of the host galaxy of z = 1.77(-0.17)(+0.30). From a combination of Gemini and Keck spectroscopy of the host galaxy spanning 4500-18000 angstrom, we detect a single emission line at 13390 A, inferred as H beta at z = 1.754 +/- 0.001 and corroborating the photometric redshift. The host galaxy properties of GRB 181123B are typical of those of other SGRB hosts, with an inferred stellar mass of approximate to 9.1 x 10(9)M(circle dot), a mass-weighted age of approximate to 0.9 Gyr, and an optical luminosity of approximate to 0.9L*. At z = 1.754, GRB 181123B is the most distant secure SGRB with an optical afterglow detection and one of only three at z > 1.5. Motivated by a growing number of high-z SGRBs, we explore the effects of a missing z > 1.5 SGRB population among the current Swift sample on delay time distribution (DTD) models. We find that lognormal models with mean delay times of approximate to 4-6 Gyr are consistent with the observed distribution but can be ruled out to 95% confidence, with an additional one to five Swift SGRBs recovered at z > 1.5. In contrast, power-law models with proportional to t(-1) are consistent with the redshift distribution and can accommodate up to approximate to 30 SGRBs at these redshifts. Under this model, we predict that approximate to 1/3 of the current Swift population of SGRBs is at z > 1. The future discovery or recovery of existing high-z SGRBs will provide significant discriminating power on their DTDs and thus their formation channels.
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