GRIS detections of the 511 keV line from the Galactic center region in 1992

The Gamma Ray Imaging Spectrometer (GRIS) was flown on balloons over Alice Springs, Australia on 1992 April 26 and May 7. A full Galactic center transit (about 12 hr) was achieved on both flights with the instrument working normally. The electron/positron annihilation line was detected on both flights. The line fluxes and line widths were found to be (7.7 +/- 1.2) x 10 exp -4 and (8.9 +/- 1.1) x 10 exp -4 photons/sq cm per sec and 1.3 +/- 0.7 and 3.6 +/- 1.0 keV, respectively. These results are compared to each other and earlier (1988) GRIS results to produce suggestive evidence for source variability. Near-contemporaneous OSSE/CGRO Galactic center observations indicate that the GRIS results cannot be due solely to a single point source like IE 1740.7-2942 within a few degrees of the Galactic center. The GRIS 1992 results represent the first time that successive high-resolution balloon measurements have been achieved on a time scale of days.