Photometric studies on the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts using 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope

TL;DR

This study uses multi-band photometry and spectral energy distribution modeling to analyze the properties of host galaxies of five gamma-ray bursts, revealing diverse environments and demonstrating the capabilities of the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope.

Contribution

It presents detailed SED analysis of GRB host galaxies using the Prospector tool and compares their properties with other galaxy populations, highlighting the telescope's observational potential.

Findings

Massive host galaxies with high SFRs for most GRBs

GRB 030329's host is a low-mass, low-SFR galaxy

GRB 190829A's host has high dust extinction and gas content

Abstract

In this article, we present multi-band photometric observations and analysis of the host galaxies for a sample of five interesting gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) observed using the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) and the back-end instruments. The host galaxy observations of GRBs provide unique opportunities to estimate the stellar mass, ages, star-formation rates, and other vital properties of the burst environments and hence progenitors. We performed a detailed spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling of the five host galaxies using an advanced tool called Prospector, a stellar population synthesis model. Furthermore, we compared the results with a larger sample of well-studied host galaxies of GRBs, supernovae, and normal star-forming galaxies. Our SED modeling suggests that GRB 130603B, GRB 140102A, GRB 190829A, and GRB 200826A have massive host galaxies with high star formation rates (SFRs). On the other hand, a supernovae-connected GRB 030329 has a rare low-mass galaxy with a low star formation rate. We also find that GRB 190829A has the highest (in our sample) amount of visual dust extinction and gas in its local environment of the host, suggesting that the observed very high energy emission from this burst might have a unique local environment. Broadly, the five GRBs in our sample satisfy the typical correlations between host galaxies parameters and these physical parameters are more common to normal star-forming galaxies at the high-redshift Universe. Our results also demonstrate the capabilities of 3.6m DOT and the back-end instruments for the deeper photometric studies of the host galaxies of energetic transients such as GRBs, supernovae, and other transients in the long run.