An independent view of the z~5 star-forming galaxy population

Long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are created in the deaths of the most massive stars, and since massive stars do not live long, we know that they're created at the sites of recent star-formation and as such are created in star-forming galaxies. Current capabilities in observing star-forming galaxies at high redshift (z > 5) are limited in depth, but our ability to localize a GRB to its host galaxy is luminosity independent, and GRBs therefore are able to identify and probe low-luminosity star-forming galaxies that are often otherwise missed. In this project, I use rest-frame UV magnitudes of 23 GRB host galaxies at z~5 measured from new HST imaging to construct a UV luminosity function and measure a detection fraction (i.e. the fraction of those galaxies which are brighter than the detection limit of our imaging set up). By comparing these characterizations of this galaxy sample to those of star-forming galaxies, I answer the following questions: 1) What star-forming universe do GRBs trace? and 2) What does that traced universe tell us about star-formation?