Over the last decade there has been immense progress in the follow-up of short and long GRBs, resulting in a significant rise in the detection rate of X-ray and optical afterglows, in the determination of GRB redshifts, and of the identification of t
he underlying host galaxies. Nevertheless, our theoretical understanding on the progenitors and central engines powering these vast explosions is lagging behind, and a newly identified class of `ultra-long GRBs has fuelled speculation on the existence of a new channel of GRB formation. In this paper we present high signal-to-noise X-shooter observations of the host galaxy of GRB130925A, which is the fourth unambiguously identified ultra-long GRB, with prompt gamma-ray emission detected for ~20ks. The GRB line of sight was close to the host galaxy nucleus, and our spectroscopic observations cover both this region along the bulge/disk of the galaxy, in addition to a bright star-forming region within the outskirts of the galaxy. From our broad wavelength coverage we obtain accurate metallicity and dust-extinction measurements at both the galaxy nucleus, and an outer star-forming region, and measure a super-solar metallicity at both locations, placing this galaxy within the 10-20% most metal-rich GRB host galaxies. Such a high metal enrichment has implications on the progenitor models of both long and ultra-long GRBs, although the edge-on orientation of the host galaxy does not allow us to rule out a large metallicity variation along our line of sight. The spatially resolved spectroscopic data presented in this paper offer important insight into variations in the metal and dust abundance within GRB host galaxies. They also illustrate the need for IFU observations on a larger sample of GRB host galaxies at varies metallicities to provide a more quantitative view on the relation between the GRB circumburst and the galaxy-whole properties.
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are indisputably related to star formation, and their vast luminosity in gamma rays pin-points regions of star formation independent of galaxy mass. As such, GRBs provide a unique tool for studying star forming g
alaxies out to high-z independent of luminosity. Most of our understanding of the properties of GRB hosts (GRBHs) comes from optical and near-infrared (NIR) follow-up observations, and we therefore have relatively little knowledge of the fraction of dust-enshrouded star formation that resides within GRBHs. Currently ~20% of GRBs show evidence of significant amounts of dust along the line of sight to the afterglow through the host galaxy, and these GRBs tend to reside within redder and more massive galaxies than GRBs with optically bright afterglows. In this paper we present Herschel observations of five GRBHs with evidence of being dust-rich, targeted to understand the dust attenuation properties within GRBs better. Despite the sensitivity of our Herschel observations, only one galaxy in our sample was detected (GRBH 070306), for which we measure a total star formation rate (SFR) of ~100Mstar/yr, and which had a relatively high stellar mass (log[Mstar]=10.34+0.09/-0.04). Nevertheless, when considering a larger sample of GRBHs observed with Herschel, it is clear that stellar mass is not the only factor contributing to a Herschel detection, and significant dust extinction along the GRB sightline (A_{V,GRB}>1.5~mag) appears to be a considerably better tracer of GRBHs with high dust mass. This suggests that the extinguishing dust along the GRB line of sight lies predominantly within the host galaxy ISM, and thus those GRBs with A_{V,GRB}>1~mag but with no host galaxy Herschel detections are likely to have been predominantly extinguished by dust within an intervening dense cloud.
The composition and amount of interstellar dust within gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies is of key importance when addressing selection effects in the GRB redshift distribution, and when studying the properties of their host galaxies. As well as th
e implications for GRB research, probing the dust within the high-z hosts of GRBs also contributes to our understanding of the conditions of the interstellar medium and star-formation in the distant Universe. Nevertheless, the physical properties of dust within GRB host galaxies continues to be a highly contended issue. In this paper we explore the mean extinction properties of dust within the host galaxies of a sample of 17 GRBs with total host galaxy visual extinction Av<1 (<Av>=0.4), covering a redshift range z=0.7-3.1. We find the average host extinction curve to have an ultraviolet slope comparable to that of the LMC, but with little evidence of a 2175Angs dust extinction feature as observed along Milky Way and LMC sightlines. We cannot at present rule out the presence of a 2175Angs feature, and both the standard SMC and LMC extinction curves also provide good fits to our data. However, we can reject an extinction curve that has a UV slope as flat as the mean Milky Way extinction curve, whilst also having a 2175Angs feature as prominent as seen in the mean Milky Way extinction curve. This is in contrast to the clear detection of a 2175Angs bump and the flatter extinction curves of some more heavily extinguished GRBs (Av>1), which may be indicative of there being a dependence between dust abundance and the wavelength dependence of dust extinction, as has been previously speculated.
There is considerable discrepancy between the amount of X-ray absorption and that inferred from optical (rest frame UV) as measured along gamma-ray burst (GRB) sight lines, with the former being typically an order of magnitude higher than what would
be expected from the measurement of neutral element species via optical absorption line spectroscopy. We explore this missing gas problem by using X-ray and optical measurements in a sample of 29 z=0.7-6.3 GRBs from both spectroscopic data and the afterglow broadband spectral energy distributions. The low ionisation species detected in the UV are associated with the neutral interstellar medium in the GRB host galaxy, while soft X-ray absorption, which is weakly dependent on the ionisation state of the gas, provides a probe of the total column of gas along the sight line. After careful consideration of any systematic effects, we find that the neutral gas consists of less than ~10% of the total gas, and this limit decreases with the more ionised that the X-ray absorbing gas is, which in our spectral fits is assumed to be neutral. Only a very small fraction of this ionised gas, however, is detected in UV absorption lines with ionisation potentials up to ~200eV (i.e. SiIV, CIV, NV, OVI), which leaves us to postulate that the X-ray excess is due to ultra-highly-ionised, dense gas in the GRB vicinity.
In this paper we present the results from the analysis of a sample of 28 gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow spectral energy distributions, spanning the X-ray through to near-infrared wavelengths. This is the largest sample of GRB afterglow spectral ener
gy distributions thus far studied, providing a strong handle on the optical depth distribution of soft X-ray absorption and dust-extinction systems in GRB host galaxies. We detect an absorption system within the GRB host galaxy in 79% of the sample, and an extinction system in 71% of the sample, and find the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) extinction law to provide an acceptable fit to the host galaxy extinction profile for the majority of cases, consistent with previous findings. The range in the soft X-ray absorption to dust-extinction ratio, N_{H,X}/Av, in GRB host galaxies spans almost two orders of magnitude, and the typical ratios are significantly larger than those of the Magellanic Clouds or Milky Way. Although dust destruction could be a cause, at least in part, for the large N_{H,X}/Av ratios, the good fit provided by the SMC extinction law for the majority of our sample suggests that there is an abundance of small dust grains in the GRB environment, which we would expect to have been destroyed if dust destruction were responsible for the large N_{H,X}/Av ratios. Instead, our analysis suggests that the distribution of N_{H,X}/Av in GRB host galaxies may be mostly intrinsic to these galaxies, and this is further substantiated by evidence for a strong negative correlation between N_{H,X}/Av and metallicity for a subsample of GRB hosts with known metallicity. Furthermore, we find the N_{H,X}/Av ratio and metallicity for this subsample of GRBs to be comparable to the relation found in other more metal-rich galaxies.
