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On the nature of gamma-ray burst time dilationsThe recent discovery that faint gamma-ray bursts are stretched in time relative to bright ones has been interpreted as support for cosmological distances: faint bursts have their durations redshifted relative to bright ones. It was pointed out, however, that the relative time stretching can also be produced by an intrinsic correlation bewteen duration and luminosity of gamma-ray bursts in a nearby, bounded distribution. While both models can explain the average amount of time stretching, we find a difference between them in the way the duration distribution of faint bursts deviates from that of bright ones, assuming the luminosity function of gamma-ray bursts is independent of distance. This allows us to distinguish between these two broad classes of model on the basis of the duration distributions of gamma-ray bursts, leading perhaps to an unambiguous determination of the distance scale of gamma-ray bursts. We apply our proposed test to the second Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) catalog and conclude, with some caution, that the data favor a cosmological interpretation of the time dilation.
Document ID
19950038244
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
External Source(s)
Authors
Wijers, Ralph A. M. J.
(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ, United States)
Paczynski, Bohdan
(Princeton University Observatory, Princeton, NJ, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
December 20, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters
Volume: 437
Issue: 2
ISSN: 0004-637X
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Accession Number
95A69843
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG5-1901
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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