GCN Circular 7601
Subject
GRB 080413B: VLT redshift
Date
2008-04-13T10:58:47Z (16 years ago)
From
Daniele Malesani at Niels Bohr Inst,Dark Cosmology Center <malesani@astro.ku.dk>
Paul M. Vreeswijk, Christina C. Thoene, Daniele Malesani, Johan P. U.
Fynbo, Jens Hjorth (DARK/NBI), Pall Jakobsson (Univ. Hertfordshire),
Nial R. Tanvir (Univ. Leicester), and Andrew J. Levan (Univ. Warwick),
report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the afterglow of the possibly short GRB 080413B (Stamatikos
et al., GCN 7598) with the ESO VLT equipped with FORS1. A 600 s spectrum
centered on Apr 13.403 UT (49.5 min after the GRB) was acquired covering
the range 3500-9000 AA.
From detection of numerous absorption features, including Fe II, Mg II
and Mg I lines, we infer a redshift z = 1.10. In particular, we detect
the Fe II 2396 fine-structure line, which confirms this redshift is very
likely that of the host of the GRB.
We acknowledge excellent support from the VLT staff, particularly Thomas
Szeifert, Jose Cortes, and Gianni Marconi.