The Cosmic Dispersion Measure from Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows: Probing the Reionization History and the Burst Environment

2003/09/30 by Kunihito Ioka · 10 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #COSMIC cancer database #Computer science #Dispersion (optics) #Galaxy #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Measure (data warehouse) #Optics #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Physics #Radiation Therapy and Dosimetry #Redshift #Reionization #astro-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/380598

published as Astrophys.J.598:L79-L82,2003 · 4 pages, 3 figures, emulateapj.cls used, accepted for publication in ApJL

arxiv created 2003/10/14 · openalex publication_date 2003/11/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We show a possible way to measure the column density of free electrons along the light path, the so-called dispersion measure (DM), from the early [~415(ν/1 GHz) -2 (DM/10 5 pc cm -3 ) s] radio afterglows of the gamma-ray bursts. We find that the proposed Square Kilometer Array can detect bright radio afterglows around the time ~10 3 (ν/160 MHz) -2 s to measure the intergalactic DM (≳6000 pc cm -3 at redshift z > 6) up to z ~ 30, from which we can determine the reionization history of the universe and identify the missing warm-hot baryons if many DMs can be measured. At low z , the DM in the host galaxy may reach ~10 5 pc cm -3 depending on the burst environment, which may be probed by the current detectors. Free-free absorption and diffractive scattering may also affect the radio emission at a high density.

Citations

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Cited by

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• PROBING THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM WITH FAST RADIO BURSTS
• Cosmology-insensitive estimate of IGM baryon mass fraction from five localized fast radio bursts
• Probing the origin of extragalactic magnetic fields with Fast Radio Bursts
• Constraining violations of the weak equivalence principle Using CHIME FRBs
• Multiwavelength Observations of Fast Radio Bursts
• THE FIRST GAMMA-RAY BURSTS IN THE UNIVERSE
• Constraining the redshifts of unlocalised fast radio bursts
• Limits on Fast Radio Bursts and other transient sources at 182 MHz using the Murchison Widefield Array