A Constraint on the Distance Scale to Cosmological Gamma--Ray Bursts

Abstract

If \g--ray bursts are cosmological in origin, the sources are expected to trace the large--scale structure of luminous matter in the universe. I use a new likelihood method that compares the counts--in--cells distribution of \g--ray bursts in the BATSE 3B catalog with that expected from the known large--scale structure of the universe, in order to place a constraint on the distance scale to cosmological bursts. I find, at the 95\% confidence level, that the comoving distance to the ``edge'' of the burst distribution is greater than $630h^{-1}$~Mpc ($z>0.25$), and that the nearest burst is farther than $40h^{-1}$~Mpc. The median distance to the nearest burst is $170h^{-1}$~Mpc, implying that the total energy released in \g--rays during a burst event is of order $3\times 10^{51}{h}^{-2}$ ergs. None of the bursts that have been observed by BATSE are in nearby galaxies, nor is a signature from the Coma cluster or the ``Great Wall'' likely to be seen in the data at present.

15 LaTeX pages with 2 encapsulated Postscript figures included, uses AASTeX (v. 4.0) available at ftp://ftp.aas.org/pubs/

References in corpus (3)

• BATSE Observations of the Large-Scale Isotropy of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• HOW FAR AWAY ARE GAMMA-RAY BURSTERS?
• Likelihood Analysis of Repeating in the BATSE Catalogue

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• Numerical Models of Binary Neutron Star System Mergers. I.: Numerical Methods and Equilibrium Data for Newtonian Models
• Gravitational Lensing Limits on the Average Redshift of Gamma-Ray Bursts