THE OPTICALLY UNBIASED GAMMA-RAY BURST HOST (TOUGH) SURVEY. I. SURVEY DESIGN AND CATALOGS

被引:152
作者
Hjorth, Jens [1 ]
Malesani, Daniele [1 ]
Jakobsson, Pall [2 ]
Jaunsen, Andreas O. [3 ]
Fynbo, Johan P. U. [1 ]
Gorosabel, Javier [4 ]
Kruhler, Thomas [1 ]
Levan, Andrew J. [5 ]
Michallowski, Michal J. [6 ]
Milvang-Jensen, Bo [1 ]
Moller, Palle [7 ]
Schulze, Steve [2 ]
Tanvir, Nial R. [8 ]
Watson, Darach [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Copenhagen, Dark Cosmol Ctr, Niels Bohr Inst, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark
[2] Univ Iceland, Inst Sci, Ctr Astrophys & Cosmol, IS-107 Reykjavik, Iceland
[3] Univ Oslo, Inst Theoret Astrophys, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway
[4] CSIC, IAA, E-18080 Granada, Spain
[5] Univ Warwick, Dept Phys, Coventry CV4 7AL, W Midlands, England
[6] Univ Edinburgh, SUPA, Inst Astron, Royal Observ, Edinburgh EH9 3HJ, Midlothian, Scotland
[7] European So Observ, D-85748 Garching, Germany
[8] Univ Leicester, Dept Phys & Astron, Leicester LE1 7RH, Leics, England
基金
新加坡国家研究基金会; 英国科学技术设施理事会;
关键词
cosmology: observations; galaxies: fundamental parameters; galaxies: high-redshift; gamma-ray burst: general; surveys; DAMPED LY-ALPHA; LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES; HIGH-RESOLUTION SPECTROSCOPY; STAR-FORMATION RATES; X-RAY; HIGH-REDSHIFT; SWIFT OBSERVATIONS; COMPLETE SAMPLE; SUBMILLIMETER GALAXIES; LUMINOSITY FUNCTION;
D O I
10.1088/0004-637X/756/2/187
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are powerful tracers of star-forming galaxies. We have defined a homogeneous subsample of 69 Swift GRB-selected galaxies spanning a very wide redshift range. Special attention has been devoted to making the sample optically unbiased through simple and well-defined selection criteria based on the high-energy properties of the bursts and their positions on the sky. Thanks to our extensive follow-up observations, this sample has now achieved a comparatively high degree of redshift completeness, and thus provides a legacy sample, useful for statistical studies of GRBs and their host galaxies. In this paper, we present the survey design and summarize the results of our observing program conducted at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) aimed at obtaining the most basic properties of galaxies in this sample, including a catalog of R and K-s magnitudes and redshifts. We detect the host galaxies for 80% of the GRBs in the sample, although only 42% have K-s-band detections, which confirms that GRB-selected host galaxies are generally blue. The sample is not uniformly blue, however, with two extremely red objects detected. Moreover, galaxies hosting GRBs with no optical/NIR afterglows, whose identification therefore relies on X-ray localizations, are significantly brighter and redder than those with an optical/NIR afterglow. This supports a scenario where GRBs occurring in more massive and dusty galaxies frequently suffer high optical obscuration. Our spectroscopic campaign has resulted in 77% now having redshift measurements, with a median redshift of 2.14 +/- 0.18. TOUGH alone includes 17 detected z > 2 Swift GRB host galaxies suitable for individual and statistical studies-a substantial increase over previous samples. Seven hosts have detections of the Ly alpha emission line and we can exclude an early indication that Ly alpha emission is ubiquitous among GRB hosts, but confirm that Ly alpha is stronger in GRB-selected galaxies than in flux-limited samples of Lyman break galaxies.
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页数:15
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