Astrophysics - Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Exploring the Optical Transient Sky with the Palomar Transient Factory

The Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) is a wide-field experiment designed to investigate the optical transient and variable sky on time scales from minutes to years. PTF uses the CFH12k mosaic camera, with a field of view of 7.9 deg$^2$ and a plate …

Low-resolution Spectroscopy of Gamma-ray Burst Optical Afterglows: Biases in the Swift Sample and Characterization of the Absorbers

We present a sample of 77 optical afterglows (OAs) of Swift detected gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) for which spectroscopic follow-up observations have been secured. Our first objective is to measure the redshifts of the bursts. For the majority (90%) of …

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective …

The Host Galaxies of Swift Dark Gamma-ray Bursts: Observational Constraints on Highly Obscured and Very High Redshift GRBs

In this work, we present the first results of our imaging campaign at Keck Observatory to identify the host galaxies of dark'' gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), events with no detected optical afterglow or with detected optical flux significantly fainter …

A γ-ray burst at a redshift of zåisebox-0.5ex 8.2

Long-duration γ-ray bursts (GRBs) are thought to result from the explosions of certain massive stars, and some are bright enough that they should be observable out to redshifts of z>20 using current technology. Hitherto, the highest redshift …

The Discovery of Vibrationally Excited H$_2$ in the Molecular Cloud Near GRB 080607

GRB 080607 has provided the first observational signatures of molecular absorption bands toward any galaxy hosting a gamma-ray burst (GRB). Despite the identification of dozens of features as belonging to various atomic and molecular (H$_2$ and CO) …

The Synoptic All-Sky Infrared (SASIR) Survey

We are proposing to conduct a multicolor, synoptic infrared (IR) imaging survey of the Northern sky with a new, dedicated 6.5-meter telescope at San Pedro Mártir (SPM) Observatory. This initiative is being developed in partnership with astronomy …

Astro2010 Decadal Survey Whitepaper: Coordinated Science in the Gravitational and Electromagnetic Skies

It is widely expected that the coming decade will witness the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The ground-based LIGO and Virgo GW observatories are being upgraded to advanced sensitivity, and are expected to observe a significant …

The First Positive Detection of Molecular Gas in a GRB Host Galaxy

We report on strong H$_2$ and CO absorption from gas within the host galaxy of gamma-ray burst (GRB) 080607. Analysis of our Keck/LRIS afterglow spectrum reveals a very large H I column density (N_H I = 10̂22.70 ± 0.15 cm-̂2) and strong metal-line …