English

Gamma-Ray Bursts May Be Biased Tracers of Star Formation

Astrophysics 2007-10-25 v1

Abstract

Based on a simulation of galaxy formation in the standard cosmological model, we suggest that a consistent picture for Gamma-Ray Bursts and star formation may be found that is in broad agreement with observations: GRBs preferentially form in low metallicity environments and in galaxies substantially less luminous that L*. We find that the computed formation rate of stars with metallicity less than 0.1Zsun agrees remarkably well with the rate evolution of Gamma-Ray Bursts observed by Swift from z=0 to z=4, whereas the evolution of total star formation rate is weaker by a factor of about 4. Given this finding, we caution that any inference of star formation rate based on observed GRB rate may require a more involved exercise than a simple proportionality.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0710.4370,
  title  = {Gamma-Ray Bursts May Be Biased Tracers of Star Formation},
  author = {Renyue Cen and Taotao Fang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.4370},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

submitted to ApJL, 4 pages