Chasing the association of single-pulse gamma-ray bursts and supernovae

¹ NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20770, U.S.A.
² Universities Space Research Association, U.S.A.

Send offprint request to: J. Bonnell

Received: 29 December 1998
Accepted: 16 March 1999

Abstract

We explore the hypothesis, similar to one recently suggested by Bloom and colleagues, that some nearby supernovae are associated with smooth, single-pulse gamma-ray bursts, possibly having no emission above 300 keV. We examine BATSE bursts with durations longer than 2 s, fitting those which can be visually characterized as single-pulse events with a lognormal pulse model. The fraction of events that can be reliably ascertained to be temporally and spectrally similar to the exemplar, GRB 980425 – possibly associated with SN 1998bw – is 4/1573 or 0.25%. This fraction could be as high as 8/1573 (0.5%) if the dimmest bursts are included. Approximately 2% of bursts are morphologically similar to GRB 980425 but have emission above 300 keV. A search of supernova catalogs containing 630 detections during BATSE's lifetime reveals only one burst (GRB 980425) within a 3-month time window and within the total 3 σ BATSE error radius that could be associated with a type Ib/c supernova. Thus we find no further evidence to support a single-pulse GRB and SN Ib/c connection. We also find no tendency for any set of single-pulse GRBs to fall near the Supergalactic Plane, whereas SNe of type Ib/c do show this tendency – evidence that the two phenomena are not related.