Constraining the nature of the most distant Gamma-Ray Burst host galaxies

Details Constraining the nature of the most distant Gamma-Ray Burst host galaxies Constraining the nature of the most distant Gamma-Ray Burst host galaxies

2012-01-30

arxiv.org/abs/1201.6383v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

Submitted to A&A

Scientific paper

Long duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) allow us to explore the distant Universe, and are potentially the best tracer of the most distant objects. Our current knowledge of the properties of GRB host galaxies at redshifts > 5 is very scarce, and more observations of high-redshift hosts are required to better understand their properties and the implications of using GRBs as probes of the high-redshift universe. We performed very deep photometric observations of three high-redshift GRB host galaxies, GRB 080913 at z = 6.7, GRB 060927 at z = 5.5 and GRB 060522 at z = 5.1. Our FORS2 and HAWK-I observations at the VLT targeted the rest-frame UV continuum of these galaxies, allowing us to constrain their star formation rates. In addition, we performed deep spectroscopic observations of the GRB080913 host galaxy with X-Shooter at the VLT to search for Ly-{\alpha} emission. For the sake of the discussion, we make use of published results on another GRB host, GRB 050904 at z = 6.3. The sample of GRB host galaxies studied in this paper consists of 4 out of the 6 spectroscopically confirmed GRB host galaxies at z > 5. Despite being the deepest observations ever reported of high-redshift GRB host galaxies, we do not detect any of the hosts, neither in photometry nor in spectroscopy in the case of GRB 080913. These observations indicate that the GRB host galaxies seem to evolve with time and to have lower star formation rates (SFR) at z > 5 than they have at z < 2. In addition, the host galaxy of GRB 080913 at z = 6.7 does not show Ly-{\alpha} emission. While the measured properties of the galaxies in our sample are in agreement with the properties of the general galaxy population at z > 5, our observations are not sensitive enough to allow us to infer further conclusions on whether this specific population is representative of the general one.

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