Perley, DA, Tanvir, NR, Hjorth, J, Laskar, T, Berger, E, Chary, R, Postigo, ADU, Fynbo, JPU, Krühler, T, Levan, AJ, Michałowski, MJ and Schulze, S (2016) The Swift GRB Host Galaxy Legacy Survey. II. Rest-Frame Near-IR Luminosity Distribution and Evidence for a Near-Solar Metallicity Threshold. The Astrophysical Journal, 817 (1). ISSN 1538-4357

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Abstract

The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..We present rest-frame near-IR (NIR) luminosities and stellar masses for a large and uniformly selected population of gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies using deep Spitzer Space Telescope imaging of 119 targets from the Swift GRB Host Galaxy Legacy Survey spanning 0.03 < z < 6.3, and we determine the effects of galaxy evolution and chemical enrichment on the mass distribution of the GRB host population across cosmic history. We find a rapid increase in the characteristic NIR host luminosity between z ∼ 0.5 and z ∼ 1.5, but little variation between z ∼ 1.5 and z ∼ 5. Dust-obscured GRBs dominate the massive host population but are only rarely seen associated with low-mass hosts, indicating that massive star-forming galaxies are universally and (to some extent) homogeneously dusty at high redshift while low-mass star-forming galaxies retain little dust in their interstellar medium. Comparing our luminosity distributions with field surveys and measurements of the high-z mass-metallicity relation, our results have good consistency with a model in which the GRB rate per unit star formation is constant in galaxies with gas-phase metallicity below approximately the solar value but heavily suppressed in more metal-rich environments. This model also naturally explains the previously reported "excess" in the GRB rate beyond z 2; metals stifle GRB production in most galaxies at z < 1.5 but have only minor impact at higher redshifts. The metallicity threshold we infer is much higher than predicted by single-star models and favors a binary progenitor. Our observations also constrain the fraction of cosmic star formation in low-mass galaxies undetectable to Spitzer to be small at z < 4. © 2016.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	0201 Astronomical And Space Sciences, 0305 Organic Chemistry, 0306 Physical Chemistry (Incl. Structural)
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Divisions:	Astrophysics Research Institute
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
Date Deposited:	21 Feb 2017 08:36
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2022 08:03
DOI or ID number:	10.3847/0004-637X/817/1/8
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5611

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