Gamma-ray burst spectra and time histories from 2 to 400 keV

Abstract

The Gamma-Ray burst detector on Ginga consisted of a proportional counter to observe the x-rays and a scintillation counter to observe the gamma-rays. It was ideally suited to study the x-rays associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Ginga detected ∼ 120 GRBs and 22 of them had sufficient statistics to determine spectra from 2 to 400 keV. Although the Ginga and BATSE trigger criteria were very similar, the distribution of spectral parameters was different. Ginga observed bend energies in the spectra down to 2 keV and had a larger fraction of bursts with low energy power law indexes greater than zero. The average ration of energy in the x-ray band (2 to 10 keV) compared to the gamma-ray band (50 to 300 keV) was 24%. Some events had more energy in the x-ray band than in the gamma-ray band. One Ginga event had a period of time preceding the gamma rays that was effectively pure x-ray emission. This x-ray “preactivity” might be due to the penchant for the GRB time structure to be broader at lower energy rather than a different physical process. The x-rays tend to rise and fall slower than the gamma rays but they both tend to peak at about the same time. This argues against models involving the injection of relativistic electrons that cool by synchrotron radiation.