1995/10/01 by Robert E. Rutledge, Robert Rutledge, Lam Hui +2 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Cosmology #Flux (metallurgy) #Galaxy #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Luminosity #Omega #Physics #Range (aeronautics) #Redshift #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Theoretical physics #Time dilation #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/276.3.753
published as Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 276 (1995) 753 · 30 pages, uuencoded gzipped Postscript, 533Kb, also available from http://space.mit.edu/home/rutledge/Welcome.html ; MNRAS in press
openalex publication_date 1995/10/01 · arxiv created 1995/10/10 · arxiv updated 2015/06/24 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Adopting a simple cosmological model for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), following Mao & Paczyński, we generate number versus peak flux distributions for a range of values of Ω0 (ratio of the density of the Universe to the critical density) and zmax(the redshift at which the faintest GRB in the present sample is located), and compare these distributions to one from BATSE GRBs in the 2B catalogue. The observed BATSE distribution is consistent with the faintest GRBs in our sample originating from a redshift of zmax ~ 0.8–3.0 (90 per cent), with the most likely values in the range of 1.0–2.2, and is largely insensitive to Ω0 for models with no evolution. To constrain the model parameter Ω0 to the range 0.1–1.0 using only log N-log Fpeakdistributions, more than 4000 GRBs, with a most likely value of ~ 9000 GRBs, above the 1024 ms averaged peak flux of 0.3 photon cm–2 s–1 would be needed. This requires a live integration time of > 6 yr with BATSE. Detectors sensitive to much lower limits (i.e., standard candle bursts out to zmax = 10, ~ x 70–400 in sensitivity) require ~ 200 GRBs, with < 0.03 yr 4π steradian coverage. We place limits on the amount of frequency density and, separately, peak luminosity evolution in the sample of GRBs. We find that frequency density evolution models can place the faintest GRBs at zmax ~ 10–200, without conflicting with the observations of relative time dilation of ~ 2 reported by Norris et al. and Wijers & Paczyński (see, however, Band), although this would require vastly different commoving burst rates in GRBs of different spectra.