MNRAS-2013-Tunnicliffe-mnras-stt1975.pdf (3.76 MB)
On the nature of the 'hostless' short GRBs
journal contribution
posted on 2014-04-01, 15:07 authored by R. L. Tunnicliffe, Andrew J. Levan, Nial R. Tanvir, A. Rowlinson, D. A. Perley, J. S. Bloom, S. B. Cenko, Paul T. O'Brien, B. E. Cobb, K. Wiersema, D. Malesani, A. D. U. Postigo, J. Hjorth, J. P. U. Fynbo, P. JakobssonA significant proportion (∼30 per cent) of the short-duration gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs)
localized by Swift have no detected host galaxy coincident with the burst location to deep
limits, and also no high-likelihood association with proximate galaxies on the sky. These
SGRBs may represent a population at moderately high redshifts (z ≳ 1), for which the hosts
are faint, or a population where the progenitor has been kicked far from its host or is sited in an
outlying globular cluster. We consider the afterglow and host observations of three ‘hostless’
bursts (GRBs 090305A, 091109B and 111020A), coupled with a new observational diagnostic
to aid the association of SGRBs with putative host galaxies to investigate this issue. Considering
the well localized SGRB sample, 7/25 SGRBs can be classified as ‘hostless’ by our diagnostic.
Statistically, however, the proximity of these seven SGRBs to nearby galaxies is higher than
is seen for random positions on the sky. This suggests that the majority of ‘hostless’ SGRBs
have likely been kicked from proximate galaxies at moderate redshift. Though this result still
suggests only a small proportion of SGRBs will be within the Advanced Laser Interferometer
Gravitational Wave Observatory horizon for neutron star–neutron star (NS) or neutron star–
black hole (BH) inspiral detection (z∼0.1), in the particular case of GRB 111020A a plausible
host candidate is at z = 0.02.
Funding
STFC, DNRF: 088.D-0523 084.D-0621 082.D-0451 GN-2009A-Q-23 GN-2011A-Q-4
History
Citation
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2014, 437 (2), pp. 1495-1510Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and AstronomyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Published in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical SocietyPublisher
Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Societyissn
0035-8711eissn
1365-2966Copyright date
2013Available date
2014-04-01Publisher DOI
Publisher version
http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/437/2/1495Language
enAdministrator link
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Keywords
Science & TechnologyPhysical SciencesAstronomy & AstrophysicsASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICStechniques: photometricgamma-ray burst: individual: 090305Agamma-ray burst: individual: 091109Bgamma-ray burst: individual: 110112Agamma-ray burst: individual: 111020Astars: neutronGAMMA-RAY BURSTSCORE-COLLAPSE SUPERNOVAELARGE-SCALE ENVIRONMENTSOPTICAL AFTERGLOWSHIGH-REDSHIFTLUMINOSITY FUNCTIONFORMATION RATESBINARY MERGERSSTAR-FORMATIONLIGHT CURVES