THE INTERPLANETARY NETWORK SUPPLEMENT TO THE BURST AND TRANSIENT SOURCE EXPERIMENT 5B CATALOG OF COSMIC GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

Abstract

We present Interplanetary Network localization information for 343 gamma-ray bursts observed by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) between the end of the 4th BATSE catalog and the end of the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) mission, obtained by analyzing the arrival times of these bursts at the Ulysses, Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), and CGRO spacecraft. For any given burst observed by CGRO and one other spacecraft, arrival time analysis (or 'triangulation') results in an annulus of possible arrival directions whose half-width varies between 11 arcsec and 21{sup 0}, depending on the intensity, time history, and arrival direction of the burst, as well as the distance between the spacecraft. This annulus generally intersects the BATSE error circle, resulting in an average reduction of the area of a factor of 20. When all three spacecraft observe a burst, the result is an error box whose area varies between 1 and 48,000 arcmin{sup 2}, resulting in an average reduction of the BATSE error circle area of a factor of 87.