Abstract
Work at Goddard is preséntly being carried out in three major areas of gamma-ray burst research: (1) A pair of simultaneously operating 0.8-m2 burst detectors were successfully balloon-borne at locations 800 miles apart on 9 May, 1975, each to atmospheric depths of 3 to 4 g cm−2, for a 20-h period of coincident data coverage. This experiment investigates the size spectrum of bursts in the 10−7 to 10−6 erg cm−2 size region where dozens of events per day are expected on a −1.5 index integral power-law extrapolation. Considerable separation in latitude was used to avoid possible atmospheric and auroral secondary effects. Its results are not yet available. This experiment is the sequel to a single balloon flight in May 1974, in which candidate events were found to fit the −1.5 spectral extrapolation, indicating the need for positive event identification. (2) A deep-space burst detector, the first spacecraft instrument built specifically for gamma-ray burst studies, was recently successfully integrated into the Helios-B space probe. Its use at distances of up to 2 AU will make possible the first high-resolution directional study of gamma-ray burst source locations. Similar modifications to several other space vehicles are also being prepared. (3) Our gamma-ray instrument on the IMP-7 satellite is presently the most sensitive burst detector still operating in orbit. Its results have shown that all measured event-average energy spectra are consistent with being alike. Using this characteristic spectrum to select IMP-7 candidate events of smaller size than those detected using other spacecraft in coincidence, a size spectrum is constructed which fits the −1.5 index power law down to 2.5×10−5 erg cm−2 per event, at an occurrence rate of about once per month.
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Cline, T.L., Desai, U.D. Advances in gamma-ray burst astronomy. Astrophys Space Sci 42, 17–27 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00645519
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00645519