GRBs and fundamental physics

Understand

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are short and intense flashes at the cosmological distances, which are the most luminous explosions in the Universe.

• The high luminosities of GRBs make them detectable out to the edge of the visible universe.
• So, they are unique tools to probe the properties of high-redshift universe: including the cosmic expansion and dark energy, star formation rate, the reionization epoch and the metal evolution of the Universe.
• First, they can be used to constrain the history of cosmic acceleration and the evolution of dark energy in a redshift range hardly achievable by other cosmological probes.