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arXiv · 2112.07802

Reply to: Three papers regarding the origin of GN-z11-flash

Linhua Jiang·Shu Wang·Bing Zhang·Nobunari Kashikawa·Luis C. Ho·Zheng Cai·Eiichi Egami·Gregory Walth·Yi-Si Yang·Bin-Bin Zhang·Hai-Bin Zhao
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Abstract

In Jiang et al., we detected a bright flash (hereafter GN-z11-flash) that appeared as compact continuum emission during our Keck MOSFIRE observations of the galaxy GN-z11 at z ~ 11. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the origin of the flash using all available information and our current understanding of known man-made objects or moving objects in the solar system. We found that GN-z11-flash was likely a rest-frame UV flash associated with a long gamma-ray burst (GRB) from GN-z11. Recently, Steinhardt et al., Michalowski et al., and Nir et al. reported that GN-z11-flash was more likely from a satellite. While one cannot completely rule out the possibility of unknown satellites (or debris), we find that either the chance probabilities of being a satellite estimated by these authors have been largely overestimated or their identified satellites have been ruled out in our original analysis. Our new calculations show that the probability of GN-z11-flash being a satellite is still lower than that of it being a signal originated from GN-z11.

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Linhua Jiang, Shu Wang, Bing Zhang, Nobunari Kashikawa, Luis C. Ho, Zheng Cai, Eiichi Egami, Gregory Walth, Yi-Si Yang, Bin-Bin Zhang, Hai-Bin Zhao. 2021-12-15. Reply to: Three papers regarding the origin of GN-z11-flash. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01473-2

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