Duration Versus Brightness of Gamma-Ray Bursts:
Comparisons Between SIGNE and BATSE
Kargatis, V. E., Li, H., Liang, E. P., Smith, I. A., Hurley, K.,
Barat, C., & Niel, M.
We analyze duration and brightness distributions of both the SIGNE
Venera 13 and 14 and Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE)
gamma-ray burst databases.
Choosing T_50 as a measure of the burst duration and using both 64 and
1024 ms peak count rates, we search for correlations between duration,
peak brightness, and the ratio V = C_64/C_1024, proposed as a measure of
variability by Lamb, Graziani, & Smith.
The duration histogram for SIGNE shows a long-duration peak that is
consistent with BATSE, but does not exhibit the short population, instead
appearing flat below 0.6 s; the difference is presumably caused by the
failure of SIGNE to detect the short, faint bursts that were observed by BATSE.
Estimating the instantaneous brightness by C_64, we find that SIGNE confirms
the BATSE result that the long and short bursts have similar
maximum instantaneous brightnesses.
Scatter-plots between duration, brightness, and V are consistent for both
databases; we show that SIGNE confirms the BATSE observation that there is
a lack of bursts that are both bright over 1024 ms and contain a short,
bright spike.
Status:
1994, ApJ, 421, L83.
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