A Surprising Lack of LGRB Metallicity Evolution with Redshift


Abstract in English

Recent additions to the population of Long-duration Gamma Ray Burst (LGRB) host galaxies with measured metallicities and host masses allow us to investigate how the distributions of both these properties change with redshift. We form a sample out to z of 2.5 which we show does not have strong redshift dependent populations biases in mass and metallicity measurements. Using this sample, we find a surprising lack of evolution in the LGRB metallicity distribution across different redshifts and in particular the fraction of LGRB hosts with relatively high-metallicity, that is those with 12+log(O/H) > 8.4, remains essentially constant out to z = 2.5. This result is at odds with the evolution in the mass metallicity relation of typical galaxies, which become progressively more metal poor with increasing redshift. By converting the measured LGRB host masses and redshifts to expected metallicities using redshift appropriate mass-metallicity relations, we further find that the increase in LGRB host galaxy mass distribution with redshift seen in the Perley et al. (2016) SHOALS sample is consistent with that needed to preserve a non-evolving LGRB metallicity distribution. However, the estimated LGRB host metallicity distribution is at least a quarter dex higher at all redshifts than the measured metallicity distribution. This corresponds to about a factor of two in raw metallicity and resolves much of the difference between the LGRB host metallicity cutoffs determined by Graham & Fruchter (2017) and Perley et al. (2016). As LGRB hosts do not follow the general mass metallicity relations, there is no substitute for actually measuring their metallicities.

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