[vsnet-grb-info 13028] GRB 130408A - VLT/X-shooter redshift determination

[GCN Circulars]

TITLE:   GCN CIRCULAR
NUMBER:  14365
SUBJECT: GRB 130408A - VLT/X-shooter redshift determination 
DATE:    13/04/09 01:47:22 GMT
FROM:    Jens Hjorth at U.Copenhagen  <jens at dark-cosmology.dk>

J. Hjorth (DARK), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), D. Malesani (DARK), 
T. Kruehler (DARK), and D. Xu (DARK) report on behalf of a 
larger collaboration:

We observed the afterglow of GRB 130408A (Lien et al. GCN 14361; 
Melandri et al. GCN 14362; Siegel et al. GCN 14363) with the 
X-shooter spectrograph on the ESO VLT, beginning approximately 
1 h 55 min after the BAT trigger.  

We detect damped Ly-alpha absorption, Ly-alpha forest, the 
Lyman break, and numerous metal lines consistent with 
a redshift of 3.758.

We thank Maria Teresa Ruiz, Avril Day-Jones, Cedric Ledoux,
Leo Rivas, Alex Correa, and Lorenzo Monaco for conducting
the observations.