Abstract The recent discovery of a late-1983 cluster of soft transients /1,2/ adds a new aspect to the study of gamma ray bursts. Its source is consistent with that of an isolated, > 4-year earlier event from the galactic bulge /3/. It is the third repeating series found to date with gamma-ray burst instrumentation; typical events of all three are fairly brief in duration and have energies below those typical of the harder, > 150-keV events and well above those of X-ray bursts. One may speculate that these soft repeaters form a separate population with sources in high-density (galactic or LMC) regions, given the disk and the N49 source directions for the three series. Gamma ray burst workshops and conferences of recent years are cited. Current viewpoints include a size spectrum based on peak intensity that can fit the −1.5-index power law /4/; this, consistent with the continuing isotropy of hard bursts /5/, implies the absence of any source region information. Observations of spectral evolution /6,7/ and of very high every components /8/, together with uncertainties as to the low-energy features, suggest that the understanding of hard burst spectra may be premature. Evidence for regular features in time histories has been inferred /9/; less convincing than in the soft prototype of 1979 March 5, the effects of quasi-periodic processes may be indicated instead. Since the hard, “classical” bursts and the soft repeaters may not necessarily have a great deal in common, and with no conclusive counterpart studies, the assumption that nearby neutron stars are the sources of the hard events remains plausible but unproved.


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    Title :

    Observations of cosmic gamma-ray bursts


    Contributors:
    Cline, T.L. (author)

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    1986-01-01


    Size :

    10 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




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