Reconciling the GRB rate and star formation histories

Understand

While there are numerous indications that GRBs arise from the death of massive stars, the GRB rate does not follow the global cosmic star formation rate and, within their hosts, GRBs are more concentrated in regions of very high star formation.

• We explain both puzzles here.
• Using the publicly available VESPA database of SDSS Data Release 7 spectra, we explore a multi-parameter space in galaxy properties, like stellar mass, metallicity, dust etc.
• to find the sub-set of galaxies that reproduce the recently obtained GRB rate by Wanderman & Piran (2010).