The Cosmic Star Formation History: Insights from Kilonova-Associated Gamma-Ray Bursts

TL;DR

This study investigates gamma-ray bursts with confirmed kilonova signatures to assess their effectiveness as tracers of the delayed star formation rate across cosmic time, revealing unexpected trends at low redshifts.

Contribution

It moves beyond traditional GRB classification to focus on kilonova-associated GRBs, providing new insights into their connection with the delayed star formation rate.

Findings

Kilonova-associated GRB formation rate trends differ from the delayed SFR at low redshifts.

Results challenge the assumption that all kilonova GRBs trace the delayed SFR.

Further data needed to confirm the reliability of kilonova GRBs as SFR probes.

Abstract

The origin of the Universe and its material content remains one of the most fundamental questions in science. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with their extreme luminosities and high-redshift detectability, provide a unique window into the history of cosmic formation and chemical evolution. Consequently, the GRB formation rate (FR) has been employed to trace the star formation rate (SFR) across cosmic time. GRBs are conventionally classified into long and short categories (lGRBs and sGRBs) based on their $ T_{90} $ duration. sGRBs are widely employed as tracers of the delayed SFR, owing to their origin linked to the inspiral timescales of compact binary systems. However, some studies suggest that the detection of supernova-associated sGRBs may indicate potential contamination by core-collapse events. In this work, we move beyond the $ T_{90} $ classification and focus exclusively on GRBs with confirmed kilonova signatures, which provide unambiguous evidence of binary compact star mergers, to reassess their connection with the delayed SFR. Through analysis of a kilonova-associated GRB (KN/GRBs) sample, we find that even within this robust subset, the KN/GRB FR displays a trend contrary to that of the delayed SFR at low redshifts ($ z < 1 $). This result challenges the conventional theory by indicating that low-redshift KN/GRBs may not accurately trace the delayed SFR, independent of core-collapse contamination, while further validation with larger KN/GRB samples is essential to determine the reliability of compact binary mergers as probes of delayed SFR.