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Z. Bagoly

Publications and source records attributed to Z. Bagoly.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Classification of Swift's gamma-ray bursts

Two classes of gamma-ray bursts have been identified in the BATSE catalogs characterized by durations shorter and longer than about 2 seconds. There are, however, some indications for the existence of a third class. Swift satellite detectors have different spectral sensitivity than pre-Swift ones for gamma-ray bursts. Therefore, it is worth to reanalyze the durations and their distribution. We analyze, the maximum likelihood estimation, the bursts duration distribution, published in The First BAT Catalog, whether it contains two, three or more groups. The three log-normal fit is significantly (99.54% probability) better than the two for the duration distribution. Monte-Carlo simulations also confirm this probability (99.2%). Similarly, in previous results we found that the fourth component is not needed. The relative frequencies of the distribution of the groups are 7% short 35% intermediate and 58% long. Although the relative frequencies of the groups are different than in the BATSE GRB sample, the difference in the instrument spectral sensitivities can explain this bias on a natural way. This means theoretical models may be needed to explain three different type of gamma-ray bursts.

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Testing the Randomness in the Sky-Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We studied the complete randomness of the angular distribution of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by BATSE. Since GRBs seem to be a mixture of objects of different physical nature we divided the BATSE sample into 5 subsamples (short1, short2, intermediate, long1, long2) based on their durations and peak fluxes and studied the angular distributions separately. We used three methods, Voronoi tesselation, minimal spanning tree and multifractal spectra to search for non-randomness in the subsamples. To investigate the eventual non-randomness in the subsamples we defined 13 test-variables (9 from the Voronoi tesselation, 3 from the minimal spanning tree and one from the multifractal spectrum). Assuming that the point patterns obtained from the BATSE subsamples are fully random we made Monte Carlo simulations taking into account the BATSE's sky-exposure function. The MC simulations enabled us to test the null hypothesis i.e. that the angular distributions are fully random. We tested the randomness by binomial test and introducing squared Euclidean distances in the parameter space of the test-variables. We concluded that the short1, short2 groups deviate significantly (99.90%, 99.98%) from the fully randomness in the distribution of the squared Euclidean distances but it is not the case at the long samples. At the intermediate group the squared Euclidean distances also give significant deviation (98.51%).

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Principal Component Analysis of Gamma-Ray Bursts' Spectra

Principal component analysis is a statistical method, which lowers the number of important variables in a data set. The use of this method for the bursts' spectra and afterglows is discussed in this paper. The analysis indicates that three principal components are enough among the eight ones to describe the variablity of the data. The correlation between spectral index alpha and the redshift suggests that the thermal emission component becomes more dominant at larger redshifts.

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Redshifts of the Long Gamma-Ray Bursts

The low energy spectra of some gamma-ray bursts' show excess components beside the power-law dependence. The consequences of such a feature allows to estimate the gamma photometric redshift of the long gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE Catalog. There is good correlation between the measured optical and the estimated gamma photometric redshifts. The estimated redshift values for the long bright gamma-ray bursts are up to z=4, while for the the faint long bursts - which should be up to z=20 - the redshifts cannot be determined unambiguously with this method. The redshift distribution of all the gamma-ray bursts with known optical redshift agrees quite well with the BATSE based gamma photometric redshift distribution.

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Physical Difference between the short and long GRBs

We provided separate bivariate log-normal distribution fits to the BATSE short and long burst samples using the durations and fluences. We show that these fits present an evidence for a power-law dependence between the fluence and the duration, with a statistically significant different index for the long and short groups. We argue that the effect is probably real, and the two subgroups are different physical phenomena. This may provide a potentially useful constraint for models of long and short bursts.

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On the Origin of the Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts

The origin of dark bursts - i.e. that have no observed afterglows in X-ray, optical/NIR and radio ranges - is unclear yet. Different possibilities - instrumental biases, very high redshifts, extinction in the host galaxies - are discussed and shown to be important. On the other hand, the dark bursts should not form a new subgroup of long gamma-ray bursts themselves.

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Properties of the intermediate type of gamma-ray bursts

Gamma-ray bursts can be divided into three groups ("short", "intermediate", "long") with respect to their durations. The third type of gamma-ray bursts - as known - has the intermediate duration. We show that the intermediate group is the softest one. An anticorrelation between the hardness and the duration is found for this subclass in contrast to the short and long groups.

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Redshift distribution of gamma-ray bursts and star formation rate

The redshift distribution of gamma-ray bursts collected in the BATSE Catalog is compared with the star formation rate. We aim to clarify the accordance between them. We also study the case of comoving number density of bursts monotonously increasing up to redshift 6-20. A method independent of the models of the gamma-ray bursts is used. The short and the long subgroups are studied separately. The redshift distribution of the long bursts may be proportional to the star formation rate. For the short bursts this can also happen, but the proportionality is less evident. For the long bursts the monotonously increasing scenario is also less probable but still can occur. For the short bursts this alternative seems to be excluded.

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The Swift satellite and redshifts of long gamma-ray bursts

Until 6 October 2005 sixteen redshifts have been measured of long gamma-ray bursts discovered by the Swift satellite. Further 45 redshifts have been measured of the long gamma-ray bursts discovered by other satellites. Here we perform five statistical tests comparing the redshift distributions of these two samples assuming - as the null hypothesis - identical distribution for the two samples. Three tests (Student's $t$-test, Mann-Whitney test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test) reject the null hypothesis on the significance levels between 97.19 and 98.55%. Two different comparisons of the medians show extreme $(99.78-99.99994)$% significance levels of rejection. This means that the redshifts of the Swift sample and the redshifts of the non-Swift sample are distributed differently - in the Swift sample the redshifts are on average larger. This statistical result suggests that the long GRBs should on average be at the higher redshifts of the Swift sample.

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A new definition of the intermediate group of gamma-ray bursts

Gamma-ray bursts can be divided into three groups ("short", "intermediate", "long") with respect to their durations. This classification is somewhat imprecise, since the subgroup of intermediate duration has an admixture of both short and long bursts. In this paper a physically more reasonable definition of the intermediate group is presented, using also the hardnesses of the bursts. It is shown again that the existence of the three groups is real, no further groups are needed. The intermediate group is the softest one. From this new definition it follows that 11% of all bursts belong to this group. An anticorrelation between the hardness and the duration is found for this subclass in contrast to the short and long groups. Despite this difference it is not clear yet whether this group represents a physically different phenomenon.

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Gamma-ray Bursts in Wavelet Space

The gamma-ray burst's lightcurves have been analyzed using a special wavelet transformation. The applied wavelet base is based on a typical Fast Rise-Exponential Decay (FRED) pulse. The shape of the wavelet coefficients' total distribution is determined on the observational frequency grid. Our analysis indicates that the pulses in the long bursts' high energy channel lightcurves are more FRED-like than the lower ones, independently from the actual physical time-scale.

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Where is the 3rd subgroup of GRBs?

It is shown that in the duration-hardness plane the GRBs of the third intermediate subgroup are well defined. Their durations are intermediate (i.e. roughly between 2 and 10 seconds), but their hardnesses are the lowest. They are even softer than the long bursts.

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'On the difference between the short and long gamma-ray bursts'

We argue that the distributions of both the intrinsic fluence and the intrinsic duration of the gamma-ray emission in gamma-ray bursts from the BATSE sample are well represented by log-normal distributions, in which the intrinsic dispersion is much larger than the cosmological time dilatation and redshift effects. We perform separate bivariate log-normal distribution fits to the BATSE short and long burst samples. The bivariate log-normal behaviour results in an ellipsoidal distribution, whose major axis determines an overall statistical relation between the fluence and the duration. We show that this fit provides evidence for a power-law dependence between the fluence and the duration, with a statistically significant different index for the long and short groups. We discuss possible biases, which might affect this result, and argue that the effect is probably real. This may provide a potentially useful constraint for models of long and short bursts.

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Gamma photometric redshifts for long gamma-ray bursts

It is known that the soft tail of the gamma-ray bursts' spectra show excesses from the exact power-law dependence. In this article we show that this departure can be detected in the peak flux ratios of different BATSE DISCSC energy channels. This effect allows to estimate the redshift of the bright long gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE Catalog. A verification of these redshifts is obtained for the 8 GRB which have both BATSE DISCSC data and measured optical spectroscopic redshifts. There is good correlation between the measured and esti redshifts, and the average error is $Δz \approx 0.33$. The method is similar to the photometric redshift estimation of galaxies in the optical range, hence it can be called as "gamma photometric redshift estimation". The estimated redshifts for the long bright gamma-ray bursts are up to $z \simeq 4$. For the the faint long bursts - which should be up to $z \simeq 20$ - the redshifts cannot be determined unambiguously with this method.

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A Possible Intrinsic Fluence-Duration Power-Law Relation in Gamma-ray Bursts

We argue that the distributions of both the intrinsic fluence and the intrinsic duration of the gamma-ray emission in gamma-ray bursts from the BATSE sample are well represented by log-normal distributions, in which the intrinsic dispersion is much larger than the cosmological time dilatation and redshift effects. We perform separate bivariate log-normal distribution fits to the BATSE short and long burst samples. The bivariate log-normal behavior results in an ellipsoidal distribution, whose major axis determines an overall statistical relation between the fluence and the duration. We show that this fit provides evidence for a power-law dependence between the fluence and the duration, with a statistically significant different index for the long and short groups. We discuss possible biases which might affect this result, and argue that the effect is probably real. This may provide a potentially useful constraint for models of long and short bursts.

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A Remarkable Angular Distribution of the Intermediate Subclass of Gamma-Ray Bursts

In the article a test is developed, which allows to test the null-hypothesis of the intrinsic randomness in the angular distribution of gamma-ray bursts collected at the Current BATSE Catalog. The method is a modified version of the well-known counts-in-cells test, and fully eliminates the non-uniform sky-exposure function of BATSE instrument. Applying this method to the case of all gamma-ray bursts no intrinsic non-randomness is found. The test also did not find intrinsic non-randomnesses for the short and long gamma-ray bursts, respectively. On the other hand, using the method to the new intermediate subclass of gamma-ray bursts, the null-hypothesis of the intrinsic randomness for 181 intermediate gamma-ray bursts is rejected on the 96.4% confidence level. Taking 92 dimmer bursts from this subclass itself, we obtain the surprising result: This "dim" subclass of the intermediate subclass has an intrinsic non-randomness on the 99.3% confidence level. On the other hand, the 89 "bright" bursts show no intrinsic non-randomness.

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Testing the Intrinsic Randomnesses in the Angular Distributions of Gamma-Ray Bursts

The counts-in-cells and the two-point angular correlation function method are used to test the randomnesses in the angular distributions of both the all gamma-ray bursts collected at BATSE Catalog, and also their three subclasses ("short", "intermediate", "long"). The methods elimate the non-zero sky-exposure function of BATSE instrument. Both tests suggest intrinsic non-randomnesses for the intermediate subclass; for the remaining three cases only the correlation function method. The confidence levels are between 95% and 99.9%. Separating the GRBs into two parts ("dim half" and "bright half", respectively) we obtain the result that the "dim" half shows a non-randomness on the 99.3% confidence level from the counts-in-cells test.

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On the existence of the intrinsic anisotropies in the angular distributions of gamma-ray bursts

This articles is concerned primarily with the intrinsic anisotropy in the angular distribution of 2281 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) collected in Current BATSE Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog until the end of year 1998, and, second, with intrinsic anisotropies of three subclasses ("short", "intermediate", "long") of GRBs. Testing based on spherical harmonics of each class, in equatorial coordinates, is presented. Because the sky exposure function of BATSE instrument is not dependent on the right ascension $α$, any non-zero spherical harmonic proportional either to $P_n^m(\sin δ) \sin m α$ or to $P_n^m(\sin δ) \cos mα$ with $m \neq 0$ ($δ$ is the declination), immediately indicates an intrinsic non-zero term. It is a somewhat surprising result that the "intermediate" subclass shows an intrinsic anisotropy at the $97\%$ significance level caused by the high non-zero $P_3^1(\sin δ) \sin m α$ harmonic. The remaining two subclasses, and the full sample of GRBs, remain isotropic.

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