Properties of Long Gamma-Ray Burst Host Galaxies in Cosmological
  Simulation
  We use galaxy catalogues constructed by combining high-resolution N-body
simulations with semi-analytic models of galaxy formation to study the
properties of Long Gamma-Ray Burst (LGRB) host galaxies. We assume that LGRBs
originate from the death of massive young stars and analyse how results are
affected by different metallicity constraints on the progenitor stars. As
expected, the host sample with no metallicity restriction on the progenitor
stars provides a perfect tracer of the cosmic star formation history. When
LGRBs are required to be generated by low-metallicity stars, they trace a
decreasing fraction of the cosmic star formation rate at lower redshift, as a
consequence of the global increase in metallicity. We study the properties of
host galaxies up to high redshift (~9), finding that they typically have
low-metallicity (Z<0.5 Z_sun) and that they are small (M<10^9 M_sun), bluer and
younger than the average galaxy population, in agreement with observational
data. They are also less clustered than typical L_* galaxies in the Universe,
and their descendents are massive, red and reside in groups of galaxies with
halo mass between 10^{13} M_sun to 10^{14} M_sun.
