Abstract
SINCE the discovery of γ-ray bursts of non-solar origin in 1973 (ref. 1), about 42 events have been confirmed. All have been observed by X-ray and γ-ray detectors on various satellites, though a number of unconfirmed bursts have also been observed by balloon-borne instruments2. The lack of confirmation in the latter cases is not surprising, because of short exposure time and differing sensitivities. The detected flux ranges between about 3 × 10−6 erg cm−2 for the smallest burst to 5 × 10−4 erg cm−2 for the largest observed burst. The integral size distribution of these events above 10−4 erg cm−2 follows an S−1.5 law, suggesting an isotropic distribution of the sources. For events with energy of less than 10−4 erg cm−2, however, the observed distribution seems to flatten out, and the choice of number index (α=0.5,1.0 or 1.5) in this region is not strongly supported by experimental results.
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References
Klebesadel, R. W., Strong, I. B., and Olson, R. A., Astrophys. J. Lett., 182, L85 (1973).
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CARTER, J., DEAN, A., MANCHADA, R. et al. New limit on the size distribution of γ-ray bursts. Nature 262, 370–371 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/262370a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/262370a0
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