The Luminous Infrared Host Galaxy of Short-duration GRB 100206A
Abstract
The known host galaxies of short-hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) to date are characterized by low to moderate star formation rates (SFRs) and a broad range of stellar masses, in general agreement with models associating the phenomenon with an old progenitor, such as merging neutron stars. In this paper, we positionally associate the recent unambiguously short-hard Swift GRB 100206A with a disk galaxy at redshift z = 0.4068 that is rapidly forming stars at a rate of ~30 M_☉ yr^(–1), almost an order of magnitude higher than any previously identified short-GRB host. The galaxy is very red (g – K = 4.3 AB mag), heavily obscured (AV ≈ 2 mag), and has the highest metallicity of any GRB host to date (12 + log[O/H]_(KD02) = 9.2): it is a classical luminous infrared galaxy (LIRG), with L_(IR) ≈ 4 × 10^(11) L_☉. While these properties could be interpreted to support an association of this GRB with recent star formation, modeling of the broadband spectral energy distribution also indicates that a substantial stellar mass of mostly older stars is also present. The specific SFR is modest (sSFR ≈ 0.5 Gyr^(–1)), the current SFR is not substantially elevated above its long-term average, and the host morphology shows no sign of recent merger activity. Our observations are therefore equally consistent with an older progenitor. Given the precedent established by previous short-GRB hosts and the significant fraction of the universe's stellar mass in LIRG-like systems at z ≳ 0.3, an older progenitor represents the most likely origin of this event.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 December 19; accepted 2012 August 28; published 2012 October 8. Support for thisworkwas provided byNASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HST-HF-51296.01-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. A.V.F. and S.B.C. acknowledge generous support from Gary and Cynthia Bengier, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, NASA/Swift grants NNX10AI21G and NNX12AD73G, and NSF grant AST–0908886. PAIRITEL is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and was made possible by a grant from the Harvard University Milton Fund, a camera loan from the University of Virginia, and continued support of the SAO and UC Berkeley. The PAIRITEL project is further supported by NASA/Swift Guest Investigator grant NNX08AN84G and NNX10AI28G. We acknowledge support from the NSF/AAG 1009991. We wish to acknowledge N. R. Tanvir, A. J. Levan, E. Berger, and R. Chornock, as well as the Gemini-North staff (in particular T. Geballe, M. Lemoine-Busserolle, S. Cote, and R. Mason) for acquisition of the Gemini data. We also heartily thank J. M. Silverman for acquisition of the second epoch of Keck spectroscopy. The W. M. Keck Observatory is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and NASA. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. We wish to extend special thanks to those of Hawaiian ancestry on whose sacred mountain we are privileged to be guests. This work made use of data supplied by the UK Swift Science Data Centre at the University of Leicester. It is a pleasure to thank all members of the Swift team, who built and continue to operate this successful mission. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research also made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA. The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, provided staff, computational, research, and data storage in support of this project. We thank P. Nugent for providing the DeepSky imaging. D. P. acknowledges useful discussions with Evan Kirby, Vivian U, and Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, and helpful comments on the manuscript from D. A. Kann, as well as the helpful commentary and suggestions of the referee. Facilities: Swift, Keck:I (LRIS), FLWO:2MASS, Gemini: Gillett (GMOS), WISEAttached Files
Published - 0004-637X_758_2_122.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:41de81b2413e0fb49e8f6a0374d639d3
|
1.1 MB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 35894
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121210-101523461
- HST-HF-51296.01-A
- NASA Hubble Fellowship
- NAS 5-26555
- NASA
- Gary and Cynthia Bengier
- Richard and Rhoda Goldman fund
- NNX10AI21G
- NASA
- NNX12AD73G
- NASA
- AST-0908886
- NSF
- Harvard University Milton Fund
- Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
- University of California, Berkeley
- NNX08AN84G
- NASA
- NNX10A128G
- NASA
- AAG-1009991
- NSF
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
-
2012-12-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field