The Host Galaxies of Gamma-Ray Bursts II: A Mass-Metallicity Relation for Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Burst Host Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper establishes a mass-metallicity relation for long-duration gamma-ray burst host galaxies at z < 1, showing they tend to have lower metallicities than typical star-forming galaxies, with detailed spectroscopic analysis of 16 hosts.

Contribution

It provides the first robust M-Z relation for LGRB hosts at z < 1, including new spectroscopic data and comprehensive analysis of their interstellar medium properties.

Findings

LGRB hosts have lower metallicities than general star-forming galaxies.

Average metallicity of LGRB hosts is log(O/H)+12 = 8.4.

Mean stellar mass of LGRB hosts is log(M*/Msun) = 9.25.

Abstract

We present a statistically robust mass-metallicity (M-Z) relation for long-duration gamma-ray burst (LGRB) host galaxies at z < 1. By comparing the LGRB host M-Z 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 6 LGRB host galaxies obtained at the Keck and Magellan telescopes, as well as 2 new host galaxies from the literature. Combined with data from our previous work, this yields a total sample of 6 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*/Msun) = 9.25 (+0.19,-0.23).