Galactic archaeology at high redshift: inferring the nature of GRB host galaxies from abundances

Abstract

We identify the nature of high redshift long Gamma-Ray Bursts (LGRBs) host galaxies by comparing the observed abundance ratios in the interstellar medium with detailed chemical evolution models accounting for the presence of dust. We compare abundance data from long Gamma-Ray Bursts afterglow spectra to abundance patterns as predicted by our models for different galaxy types. We analyse [X/Fe] abundance ratios (where X is C, N, O, Mg, Si, S, Ni, Zn) as functions of [Fe/H]. Different galaxies (irregulars, spirals, spheroids) are, in fact, characterised by different star formation histories, which produce different [X/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] relations ("time-delay model"). This allows us to identify the star formation history of the host galaxies and to infer their age (i.e. the time elapsed from the beginning of star formation) at the time of the GRB events. Unlike previous works, we use newer models in which we adopt updated stellar yields and prescriptions for dust production, accretion and destruction. We consider a sample of seven LGRB host galaxies. Our results suggest that two of them (GRB 050820, GRB 120815A) are star forming spheroids, two (GRB 081008, GRB 161023A) are spirals and three (GRB 090926A, GRB 050730, GRB 120327A) are irregulars. The inferred ages of the considered host galaxies span from 10 Myr to slightly more than 1 Gyr.

23 pages, 20 figures. Accepted for publication on ApJ. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1903.01353

References in corpus (24)

• A Unified Representation of Gas-Phase Element Depletions in the Interstellar Medium
• Galactic chemical evolution: Carbon through Zinc
• Long gamma-ray bursts and core-collapse supernovae have different environments
• The Galaxy Population Hosting Gamma-Ray Bursts
• The Host Galaxies of Swift Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts: Observational Constraints on Highly Obscured and Very High-Redshift GRBs
• C, N, O Abundances in the Most Metal-Poor Damped Lyman alpha Systems
• The cycle of interstellar dust in galaxies of different morphological types
• Abundance gradients in the Milky Way for alpha elements, Iron peak elements, Barium, Lanthanum and Europium
• The VMC Survey - XIV. First results on the look-back time star-formation rate tomography of the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Super and massive AGB stars - III. Nucleosynthesis in metal-poor and very metal-poor stars - Z=0.001 and 0.0001
• Gamma-Ray Bursts from tidally spun-up Wolf-Rayet stars?
• Are LGRBs biased tracers of star formation? Clues from the host galaxies of the $Swift$/BAT6 complete sample of bright LGRBs III: Stellar masses, star formation rates and metallicities at $z>1$
• Where does galactic dust come from?
• Uncovering Blue Diffuse Dwarf Galaxies
• A new comprehensive set of elemental abundances in DLAs III. Star formation histories
• VLT/X-shooter spectroscopy of the GRB 090926A afterglow
• Mass and metallicity scaling relations of high redshift star-forming galaxies selected by GRBs
• A new galactic chemical evolution model with dust: results for dwarf irregular galaxies and DLA systems
• The cosmic dust rate across the Universe
• A Revised Host Galaxy Association for GRB 020819B: A High-Redshift Dusty Starburst, Not a Low-Redshift Gas-Poor Spiral
• The effects of the IMF on the chemical evolution of elliptical galaxies
• Constraining the star formation histories of GRB Host Galaxies from their observed abundance patterns
• New chemical evolution analytical solutions including environment effects
• Chemical evolution models: GRB host identification and cosmic dust predictions

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Chemical evolution of the Milky Way: constraints on the formation of the thick and thin discs
• The effects of different Type Ia SN yields on Milky Way chemical evolution
• [Mg/Fe] ratios in the solar neighbourhood: stellar yields and chemical evolution scenarios
• Mapping radial abundance gradients with Gaia-ESO open clusters: Evidence of recent gas accretion in the Milky Way disk
• Metal and dust evolution in ALMA REBELS galaxies: insights for future JWST observations
• Europium, we have a problem. Modelling r-process enrichment across Local Group galaxies
• The chemical DNA of the Magellanic Clouds VI. Origin and evolution of neutron-capture elements in the SMC