GRB 100905A at the Epoch of Re-ionization

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic events in the universe, and are known to arise from the death of massive stars in many cases. Their extreme brightness makes it possible to detect them at very high redshift (z > 6.5), well into the epoch of re-ionization, providing us with an opportunity to investigate the deaths of the first stars when the universe was much younger than 1 Gyr. Here, we report the discovery of GRB 100905A, a GRB at $z$ - 7.5 (age of the universe at 700 Myr). Our observation revealed a strong spectral break between z and J band, allowing us to estimate its photometric redshift. Its gamma-ray light curve shows a very short duration of about 0.7 sec, the shortest duration event at z > 5. Investigation of this and three other known GRBs at z > 6.5 reveals that they are all short duration bursts. This is puzzling, considering that GRBs from death of massive stars do not show short duration. We suggest two possible explanations for this: (i) the BAT light curves of the high redshift GRBs suffered from observational selection effect where we are only observing the very tip of the light curve; (ii) the stars in the early universe had a peculiar nature that are different from ordinary stars at lower redshifts.