Catalog of Isolated Emission Episodes in Gamma-ray Bursts from Fermi, Swift and BATSE

Abstract

We report a comprehensive catalog of emission episodes within long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that are separated by a quiescent period during which gamma-ray emission falls below the background level. We use a fully automated identification method for an unbiased, large scale and expandable search. We examine a comprehensive sample of long GRBs from the BATSE, Swift and Fermi missions, assembling a total searched set of 2710 GRBs, the largest catalog of isolated emission episodes so far. Our search extends out to [-1000s,750s] around the burst trigger, expanding the covered time interval beyond previous studies and far beyond the nominal durations (T90) of most bursts. We compare our results to previous works by identifying pre-peak emission (or precursors), defined as isolated emission periods prior to the episode with the highest peak luminosity of the burst. We also systematically search for similarly defined periods after the burst's peak emission. We find that the pre-peak and post-peak emission periods are statistically similar, possibly indicating a common origin. For the analyzed GRBs, we identify 24% to have more than one isolated emission episode, with 11% having at least one pre-peak event and 15% having at least one post-peak event. We identify GRB activity significantly beyond their T90, which can be important for understanding the central engine activity as well as, e.g., gravitational-wave searches.

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• The Fourth Fermi-GBM Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog: A Decade of Data
• Searches for Neutrinos from Gamma-Ray Bursts using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
• GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo association: some implications for physics and astrophysics
• Identification of GRB precursors in Fermi-GBM bursts
• GRB/GW association: Long-short GRB candidates, time-lag, measuring gravitational wave velocity and testing Einstein's equivalence principle
• Temporal Properties of Precursors, Main peaks and Extended Emissions of Short GRBs in the Third Swift/BAT GRB Catalog
• Pulsar revival in neutron star mergers: multi-messenger prospects for the discovery of pre-merger coherent radio emission
• Temporal Analysis of GRB Precursors in the Third Swift-BAT Catalog
• Overall Spectral Properties of Prompt Emissions with Diverse Segments in Swift/BAT Short Gamma-ray Bursts