Burst Catalog Research Articles

Forward Modeling of Double Neutron Stars: Insights from Highly Offset Short Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract We present a detailed analysis of two well-localized, highly offset short gamma-ray bursts—GRB 070809 and GRB 090515—investigating the kinematic evolution of their progenitors from compact object formation until merger. Calibrating to observations of their most probable host galaxies, we construct semi-analytic galactic models that account for star formation history and galaxy growth over time. We pair detailed kinematic evolution with compact binary population modeling to infer viable post-supernova velocities and inspiral times. By populating binary tracers according to the star formation history of the host and kinematically evolving their post-supernova trajectories through the time-dependent galactic potential, we find that systems matching the observed offsets of the bursts require post-supernova systemic velocities of hundreds of kilometers per second. Marginalizing over uncertainties in the stellar mass–halo mass relation, we find that the second-born neutron star in the GRB 070809 and GRB 090515 progenitor systems received a natal kick of at the and credible levels, respectively. Applying our analysis to the full catalog of localized short gamma-ray bursts will provide unique constraints on their progenitors and help unravel the selection effects inherent to observing transients that are highly offset with respect to their hosts.

GRB Fermi-LAT Afterglows: Explaining Flares, Breaks, and Energetic Photons

Abstract The Fermi-LAT collaboration presented the second gamma-ray burst (GRB) catalog covering its first 10 years of operations. A significant fraction of afterglow-phase light curves in this catalog cannot be explained by the closure relations of the standard synchrotron forward-shock model, suggesting that there could be an important contribution from another process. In view of the above, we derive the synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) light curves from the reverse shock in the thick- and thin-shell regime for a uniform-density medium. We show that this emission could explain the GeV flares exhibited in some LAT light curves. Additionally, we demonstrate that the passage of the forward shock synchrotron cooling break through the LAT band from jets expanding in a uniform-density environment may be responsible for the late time (≈102 s) steepening of LAT GRB afterglow light curves. As a particular case, we model the LAT light curve of GRB 160509A that exhibited a GeV flare together with a break in the long-lasting emission, and also two very high energy photons with energies of 51.9 and 41.5 GeV observed 76.5 and 242 s after the onset of the burst, respectively. Constraining the microphysical parameters and the circumburst density from the afterglow observations, we show that the GeV flare is consistent with an SSC reverse-shock model, the break in the long-lasting emission with the passage of the synchrotron cooling break through the Fermi-LAT band, and the very energetic photons with SSC emission from the forward shock, when the outflow carries a significant magnetic field (R B ≃ 30) and it decelerates in a uniform-density medium with a very low density ( ).

Nowcasting Earthquakes in Southern California With Machine Learning: Bursts, Swarms, and Aftershocks May Be Related to Levels of Regional Tectonic Stress

AbstractSeismic bursts in Southern California are sequences of small earthquakes strongly clustered in space and time and include seismic swarms and aftershock sequences. A readily observable property of these events, the radius of gyration (RG), allows us to connect the bursts to the temporal occurrence of the largest M ≥ 7 earthquakes in California since 1984. In the Southern California earthquake catalog, we identify hundreds of these potentially coherent space‐time structures in a region defined by a circle of radius 600 km around Los Angeles. We compute RG for each cluster then filter them to identify those bursts with large numbers of events closely clustered in space, which we call “compact” bursts. Our basic assumption is that these compact bursts reflect the dynamics associated with large earthquakes. Once we have filtered the burst catalog, we apply an exponential moving average to construct a time series for the Southern California region. We observe that the RG of these bursts systematically decreases prior to large earthquakes, in a process that we might term “radial localization.” The RG then rapidly increases during an aftershock sequence, and a new cycle of “radial localization” then begins. These time series display cycles of recharge and discharge reminiscent of seismic stress accumulation and release in the elastic rebound process. The complex burst dynamics we observe are evidently a property of the region as a whole, rather than being associated with individual faults. This new method allows us to improve earthquake nowcasting, which is a technique to evaluate the current state of hazard in a seismically active region.

Closure Relations of Gamma-Ray Bursts in High Energy Emission

The synchrotron external shock model predicts the evolution of the spectral ($\beta$) and temporal ($\alpha$) indices during the gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow for different environmental density profiles, electron spectral indices, electron cooling regimes, and regions of the spectrum. We study the relationship between $\alpha$ and $\beta$, the so-called "closure relations" with GRBs detected by \textit{Fermi} Large Area Telescope (\textit{Fermi}-LAT) from 2008 August to 2018 August. The spectral and temporal indices for the > 100 MeV emission from the \textit{Fermi}-LAT as determined in the Second Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Burst Catalog (2FLGC) are used in this work. We select GRBs whose spectral and temporal indices are well constrained (58 long-duration GRBs and 1 short-duration GRBs) and classify each GRB into the best-matched relation. As a result, we found that a number of GRBs require a very small fraction of the total energy density contained in the magnetic field ($\epsilon_{B}$ $\lesssim$ 10$^{-7}$). The estimated mean and standard deviation of electron spectral index $\mathit{p}$ are 2.40 and 0.44, respectively. The GRBs satisfying a closure relation of the slow cooling tend to have a softer $\mathit{p}$ value compared to those of the fast cooling. Moreover, the Kolmogorov--Smirnov test of the two $\mathit{p}$ distributions from the fast and slow coolings rejects a hypothesis that the two distributions are drawn from the single reference distribution with a significance of 3.2 $\sigma$. Lastly, the uniform density medium is preferred over the medium that decreases like the inverse of distance squared for long-duration GRBs.

A Connection between Spectral Width and Energetics As Well As Peak Luminosity in Fermi Gamma-Ray Bursts

We have revisited the spectral width in the EF E spectrum of gamma-ray bursts with the BEST peak flux P and time-integrated F spectral data provided by the Fermi GBM Burst Catalog. We first compute the BEST spectral widths to compare with some typical physics models. Our analysis results consist with the previous results: blackbody emission alone cannot explain the observed spectrum and most of the observed spectra cannot be interpreted by the synchrotron radiation. We then check the correlations between the spectral width and the observable model-independent burst properties of duration, fluence, and peak flux and find that positive correlations exist between them for both the P and F spectra. Moreover, the short burst appears to extend the correlation found for the long burst. We further demonstrate that these positive correlations also exist in the cosmological rest frame; that is, the spectral width correlates with the isotropic-equivalent energy E iso as well as the isotropic-equivalent peak luminosity L iso for different energy bands and timescales. Our results show that the wider bursts have larger energy and luminosity. Moreover, short bursts would appear to extend this trend qualitatively. Taking the Amati relation into account, we tend to believe that the spectral shape is related to energy and luminosity.

Update on testing the isotropy of the properties of gamma-ray bursts

Abstract Previously, we proposed a novel method to inspect the isotropy of the properties of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), such as their duration, fluences and peak fluxes at various energy bands and different time-scales, complementary to existing studies of the spatial distribution of GRBs by other authors. The method was then applied to the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) Burst Catalog containing 1591 GRBs. Except for one particular direction where we noticed some hints of violation from statistical isotropy, the rest of the data showed consistency with isotropy. In this work, we apply our method, with some minor modifications, to the updated Fermi GBM data sample containing 2266 GRBs, which is thus ∼40 per cent larger. We also test two other major GRB catalogues: the Burst And Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) Current GRB Catalog of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO), containing ∼2000 bursts, and the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) GRB Catalog, containing ∼1200 bursts. The new results using the updated data are consistent with our previous findings and we find no statistically significant anisotropic feature in the observed properties of these samples of all GRBs.

Statistical Study of the Swift X-Ray Flash and X-Ray Rich Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract We build a comprehensive sample to statistically describe the properties of X-ray flashes (XRFs) and X-ray riches (XRRs) from the third Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT3) catalog of Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). We obtain 81 XRFs, 540 XRRs, and 394 classical GRBs (C-GRBs). We statistically explore the different properties of the γ-ray prompt emission, the X-ray emission, the X-ray light-curve type, the association with supernovae (SNe), and the host galaxy properties for these sources. We confirm that most XRFs/XRRs are long GRBs with low values of peak energy and they are low-luminosity GRBs. XRFs, XRRs, and C-GRBs follow the same E X,iso–E γ,iso–E peak,z correlations. Compared to the classical GRBs, XRFs are favorable to have the association with SN explosions. We do not find any significant differences of redshift distribution and host galaxy properties among XRFs, XRRs, and C-GRBs. We also discuss some observational biases and selection effects that may affect our statistical results. The GRB detectors with wide energy range and low energy threshold are expected for the XRF/XRR research in the future.

Multivariate t-Mixtures-Model-based Cluster Analysis of BATSE Catalog Establishes Importance of All Observed Parameters, Confirms Five Distinct Ellipsoidal Sub-populations of Gamma Ray Bursts

Determining the kinds of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has been of interest to astronomers for many years. We analyzed 1599 GRBs from the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) 4Br catalogue using $t$-mixtures-model-based clustering on all nine observed parameters ($T_{50}$, $T_{90}$, $F_1$, $F_2$, $F_3$, $F_4$, $P_{64}$, $P_{256}$, $P_{1024}$) and found evidence of five types of GRBs. Our results further refine the findings of Chattopadhyay and Maitra (2017) by providing groups that are more distinct. Using the Mukherjee et al. (1998) classification scheme, also used by Chattopadhyay and Maitra (2017), of duration, total fluence ($F_t = F_1 + F_2 + F_3 + F_4$)) and spectrum (using Hardness Ratio $H_{321} = F_3/(F_1 + F_2)$) our five groups are classified as long-intermediate-intermediate, short-faint-intermediate, short-faint-soft, long-bright-hard, and long-intermediate-hard. We also classify 374 GRBs in the BATSE catalogue that have incomplete information in some of the observed variables (mainly the four time integrated fluences $F_1$, $F_2$, $F_3$ and $F_4$) to the five groups obtained, using the 1599 GRBs having complete information in all the observed variables. Our classification scheme puts 138 GRBs in the first group, 52 GRBs in the second group, 33 GRBs in the third group, 127 GRBs in the fourth group and 24 GRBs in the fifth group.

Type I X-ray Bursts Detected by the JEM-X Telescope Onboard the INTEGRAL Observatory in 2003–2015

We present the results of our analysis of the JEM-X/INTEGRAL data obtained from January 2003 to January 2015 aimed at searching for type I X-ray bursts from known and new bursters. Such bursts are caused by thermonuclear explosions on the surface of a neutron star. We have searched for bursts in the records of the count rate of the JEM-X detectors in the 3–20 keV energy band. We have separately reconstructed and analyzed the light curves of 104 X-ray bursters known to date based on the JEM-X data. A similar search for bursts was previously carried out in the 15–25 keV data from the IBIS/ISGRI telescope onboard the INTEGRAL observatory obtained in 2003–2009. We have continued to analyze the data from this telescope up until the observations in January 2015. The joint catalog of bursts detected by the two instruments includes 2201 events; their basic parameters are given. The large size of the sample of bursts makes it one of the most representative of the existing one and allows various statistical studies of bursts to be performed. In particular, we have constructed the dependence of the mean rate of type I bursts from bursters on the luminosity (accretion rate), revealed an appreciable burst rate from sources with a near-Eddington luminosity, and investigated the population of multiple bursts with a recurrence time much shorter than the time it takes for a critical mass of matter required for the initiation of an explosion to be accumulated on the neutron star surface. Almost all of the detected bursts are associated with already known bursters,we have found only one previously unknown burster, IGRJ17380-3749, in the archival data, and one more known, but poorly studied source, AX J1754.2-2754, has been identified as a burster. Several similar sources have previously been identified as bursters directly during the INTEGRAL observations.

The Konus-Wind Catalog of Gamma-Ray Bursts with Known Redshifts. I. Bursts Detected in the Triggered Mode

Abstract In this catalog, we present the results of a systematic study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with reliable redshift estimates detected in the triggered mode of the Konus-Wind (KW) experiment during the period from 1997 February to 2016 June. The sample consists of 150 GRBs (including 12 short/hard bursts) and represents the largest set of cosmological GRBs studied to date over a broad energy band. From the temporal and spectral analyses of the sample, we provide the burst durations, the spectral lags, the results of spectral fits with two model functions, the total energy fluences, and the peak energy fluxes. Based on the GRB redshifts, which span the range , we estimate the rest-frame, isotropic-equivalent energy, and peak luminosity. For 32 GRBs with reasonably constrained jet breaks, we provide the collimation-corrected values of the energetics. We consider the behavior of the rest-frame GRB parameters in the hardness–duration and hardness–intensity planes, and confirm the “Amati” and “Yonetoku” relations for Type II GRBs. The correction for the jet collimation does not improve these correlations for the KW sample. We discuss the influence of instrumental selection effects on the GRB parameter distributions and estimate the KW GRB detection horizon, which extends to , stressing the importance of GRBs as probes of the early universe. Accounting for the instrumental bias, we estimate the KW GRB luminosity evolution, luminosity and isotropic-energy functions, and the evolution of the GRB formation rate, which are in general agreement with those obtained in previous studies.

Bayesian framework to constrain the photon mass with a catalog of fast radio bursts

A hypothetical photon mass, $m_\gamma$, gives an energy-dependent light speed in a Lorentz-invariant theory. Such a modification causes an additional time delay between photons of different energies when they travel through a fixed distance. Fast radio bursts (FRBs), with their short time duration and cosmological propagation distance, are excellent astrophysical objects to constrain $m_\gamma$. Here for the first time we develop a Bayesian framework to study this problem with a catalog of FRBs. Those FRBs with and without redshift measurement are both useful in this framework, and can be combined in a Bayesian way. A catalog of 21 FRBs (including 20 FRBs without redshift measurement, and one, FRB 121102, with a measured redshift $z=0.19273 \pm 0.00008$) give a combined limit $m_\gamma \leq 8.7 \times 10^{-51}\, {\rm kg}$, or equivalently $m_\gamma \leq 4.9 \times 10^{-15}\, {\rm eV}/c^2$ ($m_\gamma \leq 1.5\times10^{-50} \, {\rm kg}$, or equivalently $m_\gamma \leq 8.4 \times 10^{-15} \,{\rm eV}/c^2$) at 68% (95%) confidence level, which represents the best limit that comes purely from kinematics. The framework proposed here will be valuable when FRBs are observed daily in the future. Increment in the number of FRBs, and refinement in the knowledge about the electron distributions in the Milky Way, the host galaxies of FRBs, and the intergalactic median, will further tighten the constraint.

The InterPlanetary Network Supplement to the Second Fermi GBM Catalog of Cosmic Gamma-Ray Bursts

Abstract InterPlanetary Network (IPN) data are presented for the gamma-ray bursts in the second Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GBM) catalog. Of the 462 bursts in that catalog between 2010 July 12 and 2012 July 11, 428, or 93%, were observed by at least 1 other instrument in the 9-spacecraft IPN. Of the 428, the localizations of 165 could be improved by triangulation. For these bursts, triangulation gives one or more annuli whose half-widths vary between about 2.′3° and 16°, depending on the peak flux, fluence, time history, arrival direction, and the distance between the spacecraft. We compare the IPN localizations with the GBM 1σ, 2σ, and 3σ error contours and find good agreement between them. The IPN 3σ error boxes have areas between about 8 square arcminutes and 380 square degrees, and are an average of 2500 times smaller than the corresponding GBM 3σ localizations. We identify four bursts in the IPN/GBM sample whose origins were given as “uncertain,” but may in fact be cosmic. This leads to an estimate of over 99% completeness for the GBM catalog.

Direction dependent background fitting for theFermiGBM data

We present a method for determining the background of Fermi GBM GRBs using the satellite positional information and a physical model. Since the polynomial fitting method typically used for GRBs is generally only indicative of the background over relatively short timescales, this method is particularly useful in the cases of long GRBs or those which have Autonomous Repoint Request (ARR) and a background with much variability on short timescales. We give a Direction Dependent Background Fitting (DDBF) method for separating the motion effects from the real data and calculate the duration (T90 and T50, as well as confidence intervals) of the nine example bursts, from which two resulted an ARR. We also summarize the features of our method and compare it qualitatively with the official GBM Catalogue. Our background filtering method uses a model based on the physical information of the satellite position. Therefore, it has many advantages compared to previous methods. It can fit long background intervals, remove all the features caused by the rocking behaviour of the satellite, and search for long emissions or not-triggered events. Furthermore, many part of the fitting have now been automatised, and the method have been shown to work for both Sky Survey mode and ARR mode data. Future work will provide a burst catalogue with DDBF.

The average GeV-band emission from gamma-ray bursts

We analyze the emission in the 0.3-30 GeV energy range of Gamma-Ray Bursts detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. We concentrate on bursts that were previously only detected with the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor in the keV energy range. These bursts will then be compared to the bursts that were individually detected with the Large Area Telescope at higher energies. To estimate the emission of faint GRBs we use non-standard analysis methods and sum over many GRBs to find an average signal which is significantly above background level. We use a subsample of 99 GRBs listed in the Burst Catalog from the first two years of observation. Although mostly not individually detectable, the bursts not detected by the Large Area Telescope on average emit a significant flux in the energy range from 0.3 GeV to 30 GeV, but their cumulative energy fluence is only 8% of that of all GRBs. Likewise, the GeV-to-MeV flux ratio is less and the GeV-band spectra are softer. We confirm that the GeV-band emission lasts much longer than the emission found in the keV energy range. The average allsky energy flux from GRBs in the GeV band is 6.4*10^-4 erg cm^-2 yr^-1 or only 4% of the energy flux of cosmic rays above the ankle at 10^18.6 eV.

SUPERBURST MODELS FOR NEUTRON STARS WITH HYDROGEN- AND HELIUM-RICH ATMOSPHERES

Superbursts are rare day-long Type I X-ray bursts due to carbon flashes on accreting neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries. They heat the neutron star envelope such that the burning of accreted hydrogen and helium becomes stable, and the common shorter X-ray bursts are quenched. Short bursts reappear only after the envelope cools down. We study multi-zone one-dimensional models of the neutron star envelope, in which we follow carbon burning during the superburst, and we include hydrogen and helium burning in the atmosphere above. We investigate both the case of a solar composition and a helium-rich atmosphere. This allows us to study for the first time a wide variety of thermonuclear burning behavior as well as the transitions between the different regimes in a self-consistent manner. For solar composition, burst quenching ends much sooner than previously expected. This is because of the complex interplay between the 3-alpha, hot CNO, and CNO breakout reactions. Stable burning of hydrogen and helium transitions via marginally stable burning (mHz QPOs) to less energetic bursts with short recurrence times. We find a short-lived bursting mode where weaker and stronger bursts alternate. Eventually the bursting behavior changes back to that of the pre-superburst bursts. Because of the scarcity of observations, this transition has not been directly detected after a superburst. Using the MINBAR burst catalog we identify the shortest upper limit on the quenching time for 4U 1636-536, and derive further constraints on the time scale on which bursts return.

THE SECOND SWIFT BURST ALERT TELESCOPE GAMMA-RAY BURST CATALOG

We present the second Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) catalog of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which contains 476 bursts detected by the BAT between 2004 December 19 and 2009 December 21. This catalog (hereafter the BAT2 catalog) presents burst trigger time, location, 90% error radius, duration, fluence, peak flux, time-averaged spectral parameters and time-resolved spectral parameters measured by the BAT. In the correlation study of various observed parameters extracted from the BAT prompt emission data, we distinguish among long-duration GRBs (L-GRBs), short-duration GRBs (S-GRBs), and short-duration GRBs with extended emission (S-GRBs with E.E.) to investigate differences in the prompt emission properties. The fraction of L-GRBs, S-GRBs and S-GRBs with E.E. in the catalog are 89%, 8% and 2% respectively. We compare the BAT prompt emission properties with the BATSE, BeppoSAX and HETE-2 GRB samples. We also correlate the observed prompt emission properties with the redshifts for the GRBs with known redshift. The BAT T90 and T50 durations peak at 70 s and 30 s, respectively. We confirm that the spectra of the BAT S-GRBs are generally harder than those of the L-GRBs. The time-averaged spectra of the BAT S-GRBs with E.E. are similar to those of the L-GRBs. Whereas, the spectra of the initial short spikes of the S-GRBs with E.E. are similar to those of the S-GRBs. We show that the BAT GRB samples are significantly softer than the BATSE bright GRBs, and that the time-averaged Epeak of the BAT GRBs peaks at 80 keV which is significantly lower energy than those of the BATSE sample which peak at 320 keV. The time-averaged spectral properties of the BAT GRB sample are similar to those of the HETE-2 GRB samples. By time-resolved spectral analysis, we find that only 10% of the BAT observed photon indices are outside the allowed region of the synchrotron shock model.

Correlating Fermi gamma-ray sources with ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

The origin of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) is one of the enduring mysteries of high-energy astrophysics. To investigate this, we cross-correlate the recently released Fermi Large Area Telescope First Source Catalog (1FGL) with the public sample of UHECRs made available by the Pierre Auger collaboration. Of the 27 UHECRs in the sample, we find 12 events that arrived within 3.1 degrees of Fermi sources. However, we find similar or larger number of matches in 63 out of 100 artificial UHECR samples constructed using positions randomly drawn from the BATSE 4B catalog of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) collected from 1991 until 1996. Based on our analysis, we find no evidence that UHECRs are associated with Fermi sources. We conclude with some remarks about the astrophysical origin of cosmic rays.

The FirstSwiftBAT Gamma‐Ray Burst Catalog

We present the first Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) catalog of gamma ray bursts (GRBs), which contains bursts detected by the BAT between 2004 December 19 and 2007 June 16. This catalog (hereafter BAT1 catalog) contains burst trigger time, location, 90% error radius, duration, fluence, peak flux, and time averaged spectral parameters for each of 237 GRBs, as measured by the BAT. The BAT-determined position reported here is within 1.75' of the Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT)-determined position for 90% of these GRBs. The BAT T(sub 90) and T(sub 50) durations peak at 80 and 20 seconds, respectively. From the fluence-fluence correlation, we conclude that about 60% of the observed peak energies, E(sup obs)(sub peak) of BAT GRBs could be less than 100 keV. We confirm that GRB fluence to hardness and GRB peak flux to hardness are correlated for BAT bursts in analogous ways to previous missions' results. The correlation between the photon index in a simple power-law model and E(sup obs)(sub peak) is also confirmed. We also report the current status for the on-orbit BAT calibrations based on observations of the Crab Nebula.

Statistical Evidence for Three Classes of Gamma‐Ray Bursts

Two different multivariate clustering techniques, the K-means partitioning method and the Dirichlet process of mixture modeling, have been applied to the BATSE gamma-ray burst (GRB) catalog, to obtain the optimum number of coherent groups. In the standard paradigm, GRBs are classified into only two groups, the long and short bursts. However, for both of the clustering techniques, the optimal number of classes was found to be three, a result that is consistent with previous statistical analysis. In this classification, the long bursts are further divided into two groups that are primarily differentiated by their total fluence and duration and hence are called low- and high-fluence GRBs. Analysis of GRBs with known redshifts and spectral parameters suggests that low-fluence GRBs have nearly constant isotropic energy output of 1052 ergs, while for the high-fluence ones the energy output ranges from 1052 to 1054 ergs. It is speculated that the three kinds of GRBs reflect three different origins: mergers of neutron star systems, mergers between white dwarfs and neutron stars, and collapse of massive stars.

The correlation between the local density of luminous red galaxies and the presence of gamma-ray bursts

In order to explore the characteristics of the environment surrounding the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), we have studied the correlation between the local density of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and the presence of GRBs. Using the LRG sample in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3 (SDSS DR3) and the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) Current GRB Catalog, we have calculated the local surface density of LRGs within an angular radius of less than 2° surrounding each burst in the GRB Catalog. The results show that there is no correlation between the local density of LRGs and the presence of GRBs.