arXiv subjects

Nicole M. Lloyd-Ronning

Publications and source records attributed to Nicole M. Lloyd-Ronning.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Cosmological versus Intrinsic: The Correlation between Intensity and the Peak of the nu F_nu Spectrum of Gamma Ray Bursts

We present results of correlation studies, examining the association between the peak of the nu F_nu spectrum of gamma ray bursts, E_p, with the burst's energy fluence and photon peak flux. We discuss methods to account for data truncation in E_p and fluence or flux when performing the correlation analyses. However, because bursts near the detector threshold are not usually able to provide reliable spectral parameters, we focus on results for the brightest bursts in which we can better understand the selection effects relevant to E_p and burst strength. We find that there is a strong correlation between total fluence and E_p. We discuss these results in terms of both cosmological and intrinsic effects. In particular, we show that for realistic distributions of the burst parameters, cosmological expansion alone cannot account for the correlation between E_p and total fluence; the observed correlation is likely a result of an intrinsic relation between the burst rest-frame peak energy and the total radiated energy. We investigate this latter scenario in the context of synchrotron radiation from external and internal shock models of GRBs. We find that the internal shock model is consistent with our interpretation of the correlation, while the external shock model cannot easily explain this intrinsic relation between peak energy and burst radiated energy.

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arXiv1999

Cosmological Signatures in Temporal and Spectral Characteristics of Gamma-Ray Bursts

There have been several suggestions of the existence of cosmological redshift signatures in the temporal and spectral characteristics of gamma-ray bursts. However, recent discoveries of afterglows and redshift measurements indicate the presence of broad ``luminosity functions'' which may overwhelm such weaker cosmological signatures. The primary goal of this paper is to determine if the intrinsic and cosmological dispersions can be separated. We have expanded the search for cosmological signatures to several other temporal and spectral features, have determined correlations which could arise from the cosmological redshift of the sources and have carried out tests to determine if the observed correlations can be due to cosmology. We find that the intrinsic dispersions are the dominant factors and that detection of cosmological signatures must await accumulation of a much larger number of identification with galaxies and measurements of redshifts.

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arXiv1998

Distribution of Spectral Characteristics and the Cosmological Evolution of GRBs

We investigate the cosmological evolution of GRBs, using the total gamma ray fluence as a measure of the burst strength. This involves an understanding of the distributions of the spectral parameters of GRBs as well as the total fluence distribution - both of which are subject to detector selection effects. We present new non-parametric statistical techniques to account for these effects, and use these methods to estimate the true distribution of the peak of the nu F_nu spectrum, E_p, from the raw distribution. The distributions are obtained from four channel data and therefore are rough estimates. Here, we emphasize the methods and present qualitative results. Given its spectral parameters, we then calculate the total fluence for each burst, and compute its cumulative and differential distributions. We use these distributions to estimate the cosmological rate evolution of GRBs, for three cosmological models. Our two main conclusions are the following: 1) Given our estimates of the spectral parameters, we find that there may exist a significant population of high E_p bursts that are not detected by BATSE, 2) We find a GRB co-moving rate density quite different from that of other extragalactic objects; in particular, it is different from the recently determined star formation rate.

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arXiv1997

Distribution of Fluences versus Peak Fluxes and the Cosmological Density Evolution of the Rate of GRBs

We argue that recent observations of afterglows and some theoretical considerations indicate that the gamma-ray fluence may be a better measure of strength of a burst than its peak flux. We discuss how the distribution of the fluence, or any physical quantity related to the peak counts (or flux), can be obtained with proper correction for threshhold effects. Using this method, we compare the cumulative and differential distributions of flux and fluence. We find some differences between these distributions, but more remarkable are the similarities between the distributions. The other striking feature is how different these distributions are from those of other extragalactic objects. Using the fluence distributions, we derive the expected comoving density rate evolution for different assumed total luminosity; we compare this with the GRB rate expected from the recently determined star formation rate.

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arXiv1997

The Extent of the Spectral Bias in BATSE: The True Distribution of the nu F_nu Peak Energy

The distributions of spectral characteristics and their correlations with fluence, peak flux, or duration, are essential in understanding the nature of GRBs. However, the selection effects involved in detecting GRBs can distort these distributions. Here, we discuss how to deal with selection effects involving the peak energy E_p of the GRB nu F_nu spectrum, which suffers from both an upper and lower threshold. We describe a new method to account for this double-sided truncation, and show that the true distribution of E_p is significantly different from the observed distribution.

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