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D. Q. Lamb (U. Chicago)
There is increasingly strong evidence that most GRBs are the result of the collapse of massive stars. If most GRBs are indeed due to the collapse of massive stars, one expects them to occur out to redshifts z \approx 15-20. We show that GRBs and their afterglows are both easily detectable out to such redshifts. GRBs may therefore be a powerful probe of the very high redshift universe. The mere detection of GRBs at very high redshifts would give us information about the earliest generations of stars, as well as core-collapse supernovae at these redshifts. We also describe how GRBs and their afterglows can be used to trace the star formation rate, the metallicity history, and the large-scale structure of the universe; and to constrain the epoch at which re-ionization of the universe occurred. Finally, we discuss observational strategies for identifying and studying very high redshift GRBs. This research was supported in part by NASA Grant NASW-4690.