=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3036/paper15
|storemode=property
|title=Host Galaxies of Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3036/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-3036
|authors=Alina Volnova,Aleхei Pozanenko,Sergei Belkin
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/rcdl/VolnovaPB21
}}
==Host Galaxies of Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3036/paper15.pdf
Host Galaxies of Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts
Alina Volnova1[0000-0003-3554-1037], Aleхei Pozanenko1,2[0000-0001-9435-1327],
Sergei Belkin1,2[0000-0002-9798-029X]
1 Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI), 84/32 Profsoyuznaya
Street, Moscow, 117997, Russia
2National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow 101000, Russia
alinusss@gmail.com
Abstract. The discovery of gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxy back in 1997
brought confirmation of GRBs cosmological origin. Nowadays investigation of
the host galaxies often is the only way to estimate the cosmological redshift of
GRB sources. The morphology of host galaxies gives clues to the nature of the
environment, where the GRBs were born, and allows estimating physical param-
eters of the circumburst medium. The number of GRB host galaxies with known
redshift is still insufficient for large statistical analysis and adding to a sample
GRB hosts a few more is important. We present methods of GRB host investiga-
tions, results of a modeling of GRB host galaxies from IKI GRB-FuN database
and discuss the results in a framework of known host galaxies. Increasing the
statistics of GRB host galaxies including short duration GRBs will be helpful in
the process of selection of target galaxies in search for counterparts of gravita-
tional wave events in next runs of LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA.
Keywords: Gamma-ray Bursts, Host Galaxy, Databases, Photometry, Redshift,
Circumburst Medium.
1 Introduction
Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are of the most luminous and yet the most myste-
rious events in the Universe. Many of the aspects of their nature are still unclear or even
unknown. Since these events are transient and fade out in optics in several days (rarely
weeks), the problem of their observations and investigations is to collect as many data
as possible. After the GRB’s afterglow fades away, the only way to get more data is to
study its environment. And this means to discover and investigate the host galaxy of
the GRB. Also, the study of a host galaxy may be the only way to determine the distance
to the object, which is crucial for estimates of many physical parameters.
The study of a single galaxy usually requires the collection and joint analysis of a lot
of various information from catalogues, archival observational databases and, if possi-
ble, new observations in different spectral ranges. This information may be diverse and
be stored in different formats, from ordinary journal paper to catalogues with machine-
readable tables. Despite the relatively large number of discovered and studied GRB
Copyright © 2021 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
197
host galaxies (~250 at the beginning of 2021), one of the main problems remains a
collection and systematization of their properties into a single database which would be
useful for their statistical study. There are very detailed studies which include only one
or a few galaxies, and there are large observational programs that include dozens of
galaxies with only a few parameters estimated. However, every new single GRB host
galaxy added to this list is valuable for statistics of these events and thus helps to enlarge
our knowledge about their nature and physics.
In this paper we give a brief overview of modern scientific context of GRB host
galaxies, discuss methods of their investigations, observe published surveys and cata-
logues of discovered host galaxies, and provide some examples of single host galaxy
investigations of sources from IKI GRB-FuN database based on our own observations
and modeling.
2 GRB Host Galaxies: Scientific Context
The first GRB host galaxy discovered was the host of GRB 970228, which was detected
after the optical afterglow when the burst faded [1]. This discovery has strongly sup-
ported the extragalactic nature of the phenomenon. The confirmation came with the
direct spectroscopic measurement of the redshift of the afterglow of GRB 970508 [2].
Since 1997, about 250 of GRB host galaxies were discovered and investigated in one
way or another [3], and only ~50 of them were observed with the spatial resolution
enough to clearly detect the position of the GRB source in relation to the host galaxy
structure [4]. These numbers suggest, that every new discovered host galaxy of the
GRB enlarges the statistics of properties of these events. By studying the population of
galaxies that produces GRBs and the locations of the GRBs inside their hosts, we hope
to identify the GRB progenitor and how it is formed.
The distance to the object is always a key parameter to determine the nature of what
we see: knowing the distance allows us to determine whether the object is faint and
close or bright and distant. GRBs are extragalactic objects forming on any distances at
any cosmological epoch, and the estimate of the distance to the GRB progenitor helps
to estimate its energetics and derive many other physical parameters of the outburst, its
surrounding matter, and the nature of the progenitor itself. In the case of GRBs, the
phase of optical emission may be relatively short-living, faint or even absent (like in
30-40% of cases known as dark bursts; see, e.g., [5]), and the spectroscopy of the optical
afterglow may be difficult or even impossible. Discovery and observations of the GRB
host galaxy may be the only way to determine the distance to the object and to try to
obtain an insight into its nature [6,7]. Redshifts of detected GRB host galaxies vary in
a wide range from z = 0.0085 (GRB 980425 [8]) to z ~ 6 (z = 5.913 for GRB 130606A,
z = 6.295 for GRB 050904, and z = 6.327 for GRB 140515A [9]) with a median redshift
of about 2.5. The search of galaxies with z > 2.5 and their observations is a non-trivial
problem. In this sense GRBs attract researchers’ attention to faint galaxies, which may
never be included in any unbiased sky survey, and thus GRBs may be used to under-
stand distant galaxies. Spectroscopy of a GRB optical afterglow provides rich details
198
of the properties of the absorbing system in a way that is not possible with other obser-
vational methods.
The GRB population may be divided in two big groups following the nature of their
progenitors: long duration bursts emerge from the collapse of a massive star (e.g. [10]),
and short duration bursts link to the merging of a compact binary system with at least
one neutron star (NS) [11-13]. Two different types of GRBs trace different host galax-
ies. The long GRB host population is predominantly young and overwhelmingly star
forming, and the burst locations trace this star formation, as measured through host
offsets (the distance from the site of the GRB to the center of its host galaxy) [14-16].
Long GRB progenitor locations are consistent with the expected distribution of massive
stars, which is in an agreement with their nature of an explosion of a massive star during
a core collapse [17,18]. Most of the galaxies are compact and tend to be less luminous
[19], which indicates low stellar mass [20] and low metallicity hosts compared to field
galaxy samples [21], sometimes interacting with other galaxies [22,23]. Recent re-
searches demonstrate that low metallicity is important for long GRB formation, at least
at redshifts z < 2 [24]. However, many of dark GRBs are hosted by galaxies which are
more massive, dustier and more chemically enriched than the wider population [25].
The host galaxies of short GRBs include late-type and early-type galaxies, and have
a large median offset, about five times larger than long GRBs, which is in a good agree-
ment with NS binary mergers [26]. The majority of short GRB hosts are indeed star-
forming galaxies, but with moderate amounts of star formation of ≈ 0.1 −1 M Sun yr−1,
with ≈ 1/3 in early-type galaxies with limits on their star formation of < 0.1 M Sun yr−1
[27]. There are three short GRBs associated with massive quiescent galaxies with no
trace of recent star formation at al [28]. There is a subset of ~ 10% of short GRB host
galaxies associated with galaxy clusters [29]. But short GRBs are less numerous than
long ones (~25% of the whole GRB population), so the increase of their host galaxy
statistics is a very important problem.
3 Investigation Methods
Once the GRB host is discovered, there may be two different tactics of investigation,
depending on the brightness of the galaxy and available instruments.
The first and the most efficient is a spectroscopy. Spectroscopic studies are the most
informative, however, they have their natural limitations. The issue is to obtain the op-
tical spectrum of the galaxy with well resolved emission lines with high enough signal-
to-noise ratio. So, the distance to the galaxy may be determined with a good precision
by measuring the observational wavelength of identified spectral lines and comparing
it to the rest frame values. Physical properties of the galaxy may be derived comparing
the obtained spectrum with that of well-studied galaxies of the local universe or with
modelled synthetic spectral energy distributions (e.g., [31]). The ratio of flux in the
emission lines of heavy elements like oxygen and nitrogen to flux of lines of hydrogen
series allow to determine the galaxy average metallicity – a key parameter of interest
from the point of view of distinguishing GRB models, and so spectroscopy is critical
to establish a firm understanding of GRB formation (e.g., [32]). In case of the close,
199
spatially resolved galaxy the optical spectrum may be obtained for different slit posi-
tions, which allows to investigate the structure of the galaxy, and estimate the metallic-
ity and star formation rate for its different regions [33].
However, detailed spectroscopic observations of GRB hosts remain challenging, in
particular at z > 1: prominent tracers of the physical conditions in the hot gas are red-
shifted into the NIR where spectroscopy traditionally is much less efficient. Spectro-
scopic data for z > 1 GRB hosts from emission lines is therefore available for only a
handful of cases (e.g., [34]), and even at z < 1 there are only couple of dozens of events
with detailed information on the host’s gas properties [35, 22].
The second way and the most easily available one is a broad-band photometry. In
fact, photometrical observations are the basis for the host galaxies discovery, and tele-
scopes with a diameter of 1-meter can effectively discover galaxies as faint as ~ 22m.
Unfortunately, these observations give only positional information and cannot tell an-
ything about the distance to the object, besides that it is closer than z ~ 4. This limitation
comes from the Lyman-cutoff, that effectively absorbs the light with wavelength less
than 912(1 + z) Å, as it passes through intergalactic medium. However, if the galaxy is
observed in several optical filters, each filter, combined with each other along the wave-
length, may be presented as a “spectrum” with very low resolution of couple of hun-
dreds of Angstroms (a typical full width at half maximum of a broad-band optical filter
is ~ 200-300 Å). Thus, the flux of the galaxy in different filters draws a silhouette of a
galaxy’s spectral energy distribution (SED) and may give clues to some galaxy proper-
ties, even help to estimate its distance.
This idea lies in the basis of the photometric redshift techniques. Back in 1962 Baum
was the first who applied it to the measure of redshifts for elliptical galaxies in distant
clusters [36]. Photometric redshift estimate is based on the detection of strong spectral
features, such as the 4000 Å break, Balmer break, Lyman decrement or strong emission
lines. In general, broad-band filters will allow to detect only “breaks”, and they are not
sensitive to the presence of emission lines, except when their contribution to the total
flux in a given filter is higher or of the same order of photometric errors. All realizations
of this idea include the same algorithm [37-39]: the magnitudes in each filter are con-
verted to flux at the middle wavelength of the filter, and then the resulting broad-band
SED is fitted with the synthetic spectra from the libraries, simulated based on the theory
of stellar and galactic evolution. The model spectrum may be shifted by redshift, ab-
sorbed with additional galactic extinction, and normalized to the observed flux. The
model best-fitted to the observations gives the estimate of the redshift, the extinction of
the host galaxy, and its main physical parameters, set up for the synthetic spectrum:
absolute magnitude, UV and NIR luminosity, morphological type, main extinction law,
mass, age, and average star formation rate.
Spectroscopic observations give more precise value of the galaxy distance and help
to obtain many valuable physical parameters, however, the distance measurement is
highly restricted in NIR, and it often involves large telescopes, like Keck, Gemini,
GTC, VLT [40,22], which observational time is expensive in many senses. Photometric
observations, in many cases, provide only imprecise estimates of parameters, and some
of them cannot even be estimated (e.g., metallicity), however, they may effectively use
200
instruments of medium size of 1-3 meters, and observe in NIR galaxies with very high
redshifts of ~6-9 [41,9].
4 Catalogues of GRB Host Galaxies
In this Section we observe some collections of GRB host galaxies: both dedicated sur-
veys and compilations of publications. Building a unified database of properties of
GRB host galaxies remains one of important and yet unresolved problems of astronom-
ical data arrangement.
Vergani et al. [20] and Japelj et al. [42] used a complete sample of 58 host galaxies
from the Swift/BAT [43] to study the low-redshift host population (z < 1), while
Palmerio et al. [44] extended that to 1 < z < 2. The galaxies were observed with
GROND, TNG, Gemini, VLT, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer. They compared
the luminosities and stellar masses of the GRB host galaxies to those of star-forming
galaxies in the UltraVISTA [45] survey within the same redshift range. They found that
LGRBs tend to avoid massive galaxies and are very powerful in selecting a population
of faint star-forming galaxies, and that the properties of LGRB host galaxies evolve
between z < 1 and 1 < z < 2. Their median stellar mass increases from
= 9.0+0.1−0.2 to 9.4+0.2−0.3, their median star formation rate increases from =
1.3+0.9−0.7 to 24+24−14 MSun yr−1, while their median metallicity remains constant at <12
+ log(O/H)> ∼ 8.45+0.1−0.11. The stellar mass evolution was found for LGRB host gal-
axies to be weaker than that expected following their SFR evolution, which supports
the hypothesis of a certain threshold of metallicity preferred by GRBs [46].
The Optically Unbiased GRB Host (TOUGH) survey [47,48] is the first such survey
to make use of the strategic advantage of Swift to realize the production a sample of 69
long GRB host galaxies selected by accurate X-ray localization, VLT observability,
redshift completeness, and unbiased by optical criteria such as afterglow detection or
brightness. The authors observed all 69 GRBs localization sites and searched for host
galaxies in R and Ks filters. The host was discovered in 80% of cases, and for them the
luminosity function was investigated. It was found, that the luminosity function is most
compatible at all redshifts a model containing both a metal-independent (binary pro-
genitor) and metal-dependent (single star collapsar) channels with a relatively high
level of bias toward low-metallicity hosts.
The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Host Galaxy Legacy Survey (SHOALS) is a multi-
observatory high-redshift galaxy survey targeting the largest unbiased sample of long
GRB hosts yet assembled (119 in total) [19,49]. In fact, SHOALS is the largest, most
redshift-complete, unbiased host galaxy sample available and extends out to 0.03 < z <
6.29. The selection criteria were almost like in TOUGH survey, but the observatories
used were not limited to VLT only: the survey gathers photometric and spectroscopic
data from Keck I, Gemini North and South, GTC, VLT, GROND, and Hubble Space
Telescope. The survey also includes NIR observations from Spitzer space observatory.
The estimates of redshift allowed to measure the evolution of the GRB rate with cosmic
1 Note, that solar metallicity in these units is 12+log(O/H) = 8.69.
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time, which shows a rise in the GRB rate from z ~ 6 to z ~ 2, followed by a drop of an
order of magnitude from z ~ 2 to the present time – the same pattern seen by traditional
metrics of the cosmic SFR density. Also, the median host NIR luminosity does not
evolve much between z ∼ 5 and z ∼ 1.5, but at lower redshifts (z < 1.5) the average
luminosity drops by over a factor of 10.
Krühler et al. [22] obtained VLT/X-Shooter emission-line spectroscopy of 96 galax-
ies of long GRBs at 0.1 < z < 3.6. They found the evolution of some host parameters
with the redshift. The intrinsic host extinction AV tend to be higher at larger redshifts,
which is consistent with a similar behavior observed for GRB afterglows. The authors
also found a strong evolution of the median SFR with redshift, which evolves from
SFRmed = 0.6 MSun yr−1 at z ∼ 0.6 up to SFRmed = 15 MSun yr−1 at z ∼ 2, above which it
does not increase significantly any further. This result is consistent with that of TOUGH
survey. Also, there was found, that > 80% of the studied hosts have metallicity twice
lower than a solar one.
Lyman et al. [50] presented Hubble Space Telescope WFC3/F160W Snapshot sur-
vey of the host galaxies of 39 long GRBs at z < 3. The sample is fainter than a distri-
bution expected from a field galaxy population. Morphologically, the population is
shown to be comprised mainly of spiral-like and irregular-like galaxies but with some
fraction of elliptical-like and merging systems. Also, hosts become more concentrated
and less luminous at lower redshift, consistent with the cosmic downsizing of star for-
mation. Authors found that long GRBs are strongly biased towards exploding in bright
regions of their hosts. This bias exists for LGRBs at all offsets (i.e. larger offset bursts
preferentially explode on the brighter outer regions of their hosts).
Chrimes et al. [25] present a study of 21 dark GRB host galaxies, predominantly
using X-ray afterglows obtained with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to precisely lo-
cate the burst in deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging of the burst region. A concen-
tration and asymmetry analysis provides marginal evidence that dark GRB hosts are
more concentrated than the hosts of optically-bright GRBs. Otherwise, the morpholo-
gies of these galaxies are consistent with the wider GRB host population. In agreement
with previous studies, the authors have shown that dark gamma-ray bursts occur pref-
erentially in galaxies which are larger and more luminous that those hosting optically
bright bursts. Dark bursts trace their host light in a similar way to bright GRBs, with no
evidence for a smaller offset bias.
GHostS – GRB Host Studies [3] contains the list of publications, which presents
studies of GRB host galaxies in the period from 1997 to 2015. It collects 432 papers
about 245 host galaxies of 230 GRBs and 15 X-ray flares.
5 GRB Host Galaxies from IKI GRB-FuN Database
The Space Research Institute Gamma-Ray Burst Follow-up Network (IKI GRB-FuN
[30,51]) started operation in 2001. It is an is overlay network spread on the existing
facilities and using dedicated time of telescopes of many different observatories in Rus-
sia and several other countries. Nowadays the network comprises of about 25 telescopes
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with aperture from 0.2 to 2.6 meters located in different observatories all over the
world; the IKI GRB-FuN is also collaborating with ISON network [52] and other ob-
servatories by submitting proposals for large aperture telescopes. Database counts more
than 500 GRBs with at least one observation available, and 20% of the objects have
light curves with more than 10 photometry data. The observations are obtained in dif-
ferent phases: search for optical counterpart, a few prompt observations, early and late
time afterglow observations (most of data), supernovae (13) and candidate in superno-
vae associated with GRBs (4), kilonovae (3), and host galaxies of GRBs (48). Here we
present some results of photometric investigations of several GRB host galaxies, ex-
tracted from our database.
GRB 181201A. GRB 181201A was a powerful long (~180 s) burst detected by
INTEGRAL on the southern hemisphere. The observations of the optical afterglow re-
vealed the flux decay according to simple power law, and the spectroscopic redshift of
z = 0.45 [53] suggested the search of presence of the supernova feature in the late light
curve [54]. The host galaxy of the burst was observed 8 months and ~1.7 years later
with 2.6-meter ZTSh telescope of Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and 10-meter
SALT telescope of South-African Astronomical Observatory. We detected the host gal-
axy in BVRI and g'r'i'z' filters and also used archival observations from Legacy Surveys
(Data Release 8, [55]). Based on the observations of the host galaxy of GRB 181201A,
we simulated its emission using the Le Phare code [38,39] developed to fit the spectral
energy distribution of galaxies and to compute their physical parameters, with the
PEGASE2 population synthesis model library [56]. The best model at fixed z = 0.45
suggests that the host galaxy of GRB 181201A is an irregular young dwarf galaxy, its
age and mass are less than those of the Large Magellanic Cloud (a dwarf companion of
our Galaxy) by an order of magnitude (Table 1). Fig.1. presents the photometry of the
galaxy with the best-fitted SED. The photometry of the galaxy is crucial for modeling
the supernova contribution in the light curve [54].
203
Fig. 1. Comparison of the observed g'Vr'RIi'z' magnitudes of the host galaxy of GRB 181201A
(filled circles from left to right) with the best spectral model (solid line and open circles) [54].
All magnitudes are in AB system.
GRB 130702A. GRB 130702A was an ordinary long GRB discovered by Fermi/GBM.
We observed the optical afterglow of the burst starting 1.3 days after the trigger with
the last observation held in ~90 days after the trigger. The accurate modeling of the
emerged bright supernova required the observations of the host to subtract its flux from
the supernova light curve, along with the afterglow contribution [57]. The redshift of z
= 0.145 of the burst [58] is consistent with the neighboring bright spiral galaxy SDSS
J142914.57+154619.3, and in [59] it was suggested, that the host of GRB 130702A is
a dwarf satellite of an adjacent massive spiral galaxy. We observed the galaxy in BR
with ZTSh of CrAO and took u'g'r'I'z'JKs magnitudes from [60]. We also used Le Phare
code with the PEGASE2 library to model the best SED of the host galaxy and derive
its parameters. The host is a relatively old irregular dwarf galaxy with small mass and
almost absent SFR and negligible dust extinction (Table 1), which is in a good agree-
ment with results of [59].
204
Fig. 2. Comparison of the observed magnitudes of the GRB 130702A host galaxy in
u'Bg'r'I'z'JKs filters (filled circles from left to right) with the best-fitted spectral model (solid
line and open circles) [57]. All magnitudes are in AB system.
GRB 130603B. GRB 130603B is a short burst discovered by Swift/BAT which had the
first reliable connection to the kilonova [61]. We combined our observational
BgrRCizJHKs data obtained with GTC, CAHA, and DOT telescopes with ultra-violet
data in uvw2, uvm2, uvw1, and U bands from Swift/UVOT to construct the broad-band
SED of the host galaxy fixing the redshift of z = 0.356 [62]. We used Le Phare code
with the PEGASE2 library to model the best SED of the host galaxy and derive its
parameters. According to the best fit, the host is a young massive spiral galaxy of Sd
type with bright luminosity, moderate bulk extinction similar to Milky Way, and it has
significant star formation of several solar masses per year. All parameters are listed in
Table 1. These results are in a good agreement with other independent spectroscopic
studies [63].
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Fig. 3. The SED of the host galaxy of SGRB 130603B with fixed redshift z = 0.356 (solid line
and open circles). Filled circles depict respectively the data points in the filters uvw2, uvm2,
uvw1, U from Swift/UVOT, and B, g, r, RC, i, z, J, H, Ks from original observations [62]. All
magnitudes are in AB system.
GRB 051008. GRB 051008 was a long GRB with absent optical afterglow, so it was
classified as a dark burst [23]. Thus, the observations of the host galaxy were the only
way to estimate the distance to the source. We discovered the host galaxy with 2.6-
meter ZTSh of CrAO and observed it with Keck I and Gemini North telescopes obtain-
ing images in UBg'VRiIZK' filters to create a broadband SED of the galaxy. We also
tried to make a spectroscopy of the host galaxy using LRIS camera on the Keck I tele-
scope, but the resulting sky-subtracted spectrum of three exposures of 900 s had no
obvious line features. We used the Le Phare package with the PEGASE2 synthetic
library to find the best-fitted modelled SED of the galaxy, also varying the redshift. We
found that the host of dark GRB 051008 is a Lyman-break galaxy located in a gravita-
tionally bound cluster at a common redshift of z = 2.77 +0.15−0.20 with two neighboring
galaxies of almost the same size and mass. The host itself is a young bright Lyman-
break galaxy with a moderate dust extinction and a substantial burst of star formation
(Table 1). The investigations of the host galaxy SED allowed to determine, that the
GRB 051108 was dark because of the presence of additional extinction on the line-of-
sight [23].
206
Fig. 4. SED of the host galaxy of the GRB 051008 in the observer frame (solid line and open
circles). Observed flux in UBg'VRiIZK' filters is shown by black circles. The associated Proba-
bility Distribution Function of the redshift is shown in the inset [23].
Table 1. Summary of the physical properties of GRB host galaxies from IKI-GRB FuN data-
base. GRB type is a final classification of the burst as long duration (collapasar origin) or short
duration (compact binary merging), z stands for the redshift, SB stands for a starburst type of
the galaxy, SFR stands for star formation rate, and E(B-V) is a color excess that represents bulk
extinction in a galaxy. Age column corresponds to the age of the dominant stellar population.
GRB GRB z Host absolute Host Age, Mass, SFR, E(B-V)
name Type magnitude, type Gyr MSun MSun/yr
MR
181201A long 0.45 -18.5 Irr 1.7 1.2 × 109 1.0 0.2
130702A long 0.145 -16.2 Irr 4.3 1.3 × 108 0.05 0
130603B short 0.356 -20.8 Sd 0.7 11 × 109 5.9 0.2
051008 long 2.77 -22.8 SB 0.07 1.2 × 109 60 0.1
6 Conclusions
Studies of GRB host galaxies provide information about burst environment and some-
times may be the only way to estimate the distance to its source, like in the case of
optically dark GRBs. GRBs attract attention to very distant galaxies up to z ~ 6, where
207
spectroscopic methods become inefficient. The method of photometrical redshift esti-
mate based on the shape of the broad-band spectral energy distribution in comparison
with simulated one will always be useful for faint galaxies and suitable for instruments
with moderate size of 1-3 meter.
The statistics of GRB host galaxies properties allowed to conclude that long GRBs
tend to choose irregular dwarf hosts with low metallicity, intense star formation and
mostly young stellar population, which is in an agreement with the nature of long GRBs
as a result of massive star collapse. Short GRBs do not show any preferences and pick-
up all types of hosts, since binary neutron stars may be presented in the galaxy of any
morphological type. Our studies, presented in this paper, add 3 new galaxies to the list
of well-studied long GRBs hosts, and 1 galaxy to the list of those of short GRBs. There
is 1 new studied host galaxy of a dark GRB, which increase its total number by ~5%
(from 21 to 22). Our investigations follow the results of previous studies, confirming
that long GRBs prefer young galaxies with relatively high star formation rate. Short
GRBs, in turn, does not show any preferences and may occur in the galaxy of any mor-
phological type.
There are several large surveys of GRB host galaxies, overviewed in this work, how-
ever, building a joint systematic database of all these objects remains an important
problem of modern arrangement of astronomical information. Nevertheless, adding de-
tailed information about every new studied galaxy is valuable for the investigation of
GRBs physics.
Increasing the statistics of GRB host galaxies properties provides better understand-
ing of which galaxies are picked-up by GRBs more often. This may be helpful in choos-
ing target galaxies during the search of optical counterparts of the gravitational wave
events in the error boxes of LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA detectors.
Acknowledgements. Authors acknowledge the support of RSCF grant 18-12-00378.
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