THE HOST GALAXIES OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. II. A MASS–METALLICITY RELATION FOR LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURST HOST GALAXIES

By Emily M. Levesque, Lisa J. Kewley, E. Berger, H. Zahid. 2010

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a statistically robust mass–metallicity relation for long-duration gamma-ray burst (LGRB) host galaxies at z < 1. By comparing the LGRB host mass–metallicity relation to samples representative of the general star-forming galaxy population, we conclude that LGRBs occur in host galaxies with lower metallicities than the general population, and that this trend extends to z ∼ 1, with an average offset of −0.42 ± 0.18 from the M–Z relation for star-forming galaxies. Our sample in this work includes new spectroscopic data for six LGRB host galaxies obtained at the Keck and Magellan telescopes, as well as two new host galaxies from the literature. Combined with data from our previous work, this yields a total sample of six LGRB host galaxies at z < 0.3 and 10 host galaxies at 0.3 < z < 1. We have determined a number of interstellar medium properties for our host galaxies using optical emission-line diagnostics including metallicity, ionization parameter, young stellar population age, and star formation rate. Across our full sample of 16 LGRB hosts we find an average metallicity of log(O/H) + 12 = 8.4 ± 0.3. Notably, we also measure a comparatively high metallicity of log(O/H) + 12 = 8.83 ± 0.1 for the z = 0.296 host galaxy of GRB 050826. We also determine stellar masses (M⋆) for our LGRB host galaxy sample, finding a mean stellar mass of log(M⋆/M☉) = 9.25+0.19−0.23.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/54cd417ed56b42d6852b1ab6343b5b1195cb2ef6

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Bing Zhang
2. E. Berger
3. B. Metzger
4. S. Smartt
5. N. Smith
6. E. Nakar
7. Ryan Chornock
8. A. Filippenko

Citations in the corpus

• Fundamental properties of core-collapse Supernova and GRB progenitors: predicting the look of massive stars before death (2013, background): “As for gamma-ray bursts (GRB) progenitors, we note that GRBs seem to occur, albeit at lower frequency, even at metallicities around the solar values (Levesque et al. 2010).”
• THE AFTERGLOW OF GRB 130427A FROM 1 TO 1016 GHz (2013, background): “The probable sensitivity of the GRB rate to metallicity (e.g., Le Floc’h et al. 2006; Modjaz et al. 2008; Kistler et al. 2008; Butler et al. 2010; Levesque et al. 2010; Graham & Fruchter 2013; omy and Space Sciences, 34119, University-Istanbul, Turkey 21 Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory, RIKEN,…”
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2013, background): “The metallicities of short GRB hosts are significantly higher than those of long GRB hosts, for which the median value is〈12+log(O/H)〉 ≈ 8.3 (Stanek et al. 2006, Modjaz et al. 2008, Levesque et al. 2010b).”
• Grids of stellar models with rotation - II. WR populations and supernovae/GRB progenitors at Z = 0.014 (2012, background): “For moderate coupling a metallicity dependence is also present, but LGRB could occur at solar metallicity, as illustrated by the present models, and probably at higher than solar metallicity (Levesque et al. 2010a,b).”
• RAPIDLY EVOLVING AND LUMINOUS TRANSIENTS FROM PAN-STARRS1 (2014, background): “Our hosts are offset to a significantly higher metallicity than either LGRB hosts (Svensson et al. 2010; Savaglio et al. 2009; Levesque et al. 2010a; Levesque et al. 2010b; Graham & Fruchter 2013) or the untargeted type Ibc hosts from Sanders et al. (2012) (black line and dashed green line,…”
• GRB hosts through cosmic time - VLT/X-Shooter emission-line spectroscopy of 96 γ-ray-burst-selected galaxies at 0.1 (2015, background): “Seminal sample studies (e.g., Le Floc’h et al. 2003; Christensen et al. 2004; Tanvir et al. 2004; Levesque et al. 2010a) culminating in the compilation of GRB host properties of Savaglio et al. (2009) revealed a population of low-luminosity, low-mass, star-forming galaxies at z .”
• HYDROGEN-POOR SUPERLUMINOUS SUPERNOVAE AND LONG-DURATION GAMMA-RAY BURSTS HAVE SIMILAR HOST GALAXIES (2013, methodology): “This shows that any metallicity preference in producing SLSNe does not take the form of an absolute cutoff; the same is true for LGRBs (e.g., Levesque et al. 2010c).”
• Millisecond Magnetar Birth Connects FRB 121102 to Superluminous Supernovae and Long-duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2017, background): “…strong preference for low-mass, low-metallicity galaxies (e.g., Stanek et al. 2006; Fruchter et al. 2006; Modjaz et al. 2008; Castro Cerón et al. 2010; Levesque et al. 2010; Lunnan et al. 2014; Vergani et al. 2015; Schulze et al. 2016; Perley et al. 2016a; Japelj et al. 2016; Perley et al. 2016b).”
• Stellar black holes at the dawn of the universe (2011, background): “Although a fraction of dark LGRBs may require local extinction columns of Av > 1 mag, the majority of their hosts are faint, irregular galaxies with global limited chemical evolution (Le Floc’h et al. 2003; Fruchter et al. 2006; Han et al. 2010; Levesque et al. 2010).”
• A POPULATION OF MASSIVE, LUMINOUS GALAXIES HOSTING HEAVILY DUST-OBSCURED GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE USE OF GRBs AS TRACERS OF COSMIC STAR FORMATION (2013, background): “…080207 (Svensson et al. 2012; Hunt et al. 2011), 080325 (Hashimoto et al. 2010), and 080607 (Chen et al. 2010) have now all been associated with quite luminous and massive host galaxies, and the host of GRB 020819 has recently been shown to be a high-metallicity spiral (Levesque et al. 2010b).”
• The metallicity of the long GRB hosts and the fundamental metallicity relation of low-mass galaxies (2010, background): “On the other hand, the study of sub-samples with well-determined chemical properties (e.g. Levesque et al. 2010a,c; Han et al. 2010) suggests that most of the long GRB host galaxies fall below the M − Z relation for the normal galaxy population.”
• The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, background): “Next, the offset ofGRB-selected galaxies towards lowermetallicities in the mass-metallicity relation [205] could, for example, be partially explained with the dependence of the metallicity of star-forming galaxies on SFR [332, 333].”
• A COMPLETE SAMPLE OF BRIGHT SWIFT LONG GAMMA-RAY BURSTS. I. SAMPLE PRESENTATION, LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AND EVOLUTION (2011, result): “This value, while consistent with the expectations of collapsar models, seems to be at odd with the observed properties of z < 1 GRB hosts (Levesque et al. 2010; Mannucci et al. 2011; Campisi et al 2011a).”
• SHORT VERSUS LONG AND COLLAPSARS VERSUS NON-COLLAPSARS: A QUANTITATIVE CLASSIFICATION OF GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2012, methodology): “…environments of LGRBs. LGRBs are associated with intensive star formation, arise in low-metallically irregular starforming galaxies (see, however, Levesque et al. 2010b, 2010c; Savaglio et al. 2012 for examples of high-metallicity LGRB hosts), and are concentrated toward star-forming regions in…”
• CONNECTING THE GAMMA RAY BURST RATE AND THE COSMIC STAR FORMATION HISTORY: IMPLICATIONS FOR REIONIZATION AND GALAXY EVOLUTION (2011, background): “One model adopts a large 12+ log[O/H]crit = 9 (red line), similar to the metallicity of the host of GRB 020819 (Levesque et al. 2010b).”