Distribution of peak counts and duration of gamma-ray bursts

Abstract

The procedures generally used for detection of gamma‐ray bursts were designed to obtain an unbiased estimate of the distribution of the ratio Cp/Clim of peak to threshold photon count rates. This introduces a bias against detection of weak and rapidly varying or short duration bursts. We demonstrate the effect of this bias on the distributions of Cp and duration of the bursts and show how to correct for this bias and obtain unbiased estimates of these distributions. This correction steepens the logN‐logCp relation and dramatically increases the number of short duration bursts.