A Possible Cepheid-like Luminosity Estimator for the Long Gamma-Ray Bursts

By D. Reichart, D. Lamb, E. Fenimore, E. Ramirez-Ruiz, T. Cline, K. Hurley. 2000

223 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a possible Cepheid-like luminosity estimator for the long gamma-ray bursts based on the variability of their light curves. To construct the luminosity estimator, we use CGRO/BATSE data for 13 bursts, Wind/Konus data for five bursts, Ulysses/GRB data for one burst, and NEAR/XGRS data for one burst. Spectroscopic redshifts, peak fluxes, and high-resolution light curves are available for 11 of these bursts; partial information is available for the remaining nine bursts. We find that the isotropic equivalent peak luminosities L of these bursts positively correlate with a rigorously constructed measure V of the variability of their light curves. We fit to these data a model that accommodates both intrinsic scatter (statistical variance) and extrinsic scatter (sample variance). We find that L ~ V. If one excludes GRB 980425 from the fit, on the grounds that its association with SN 1998bw at a redshift of z = 0.0085 is not secure, the luminosity estimator spans ≈2.5 orders of magnitude in L, and the slope of the correlation between L and V is positive with a probability of 1 - (1.4 × 10-4) (3.8 σ). Although GRB 980425 is excluded from this fit, its L and V values are consistent with the fitted model, which suggests that GRB 980425 may well be associated with SN 1998bw and that GRB 980425 and the cosmological bursts may share a common physical origin. If one includes GRB 980425 in the fit, the luminosity estimator spans ≈6.3 orders of magnitude in L, and the slope of the correlation is positive with a probability of 1 - (9.3 × 10-7) (4.9 σ). In either case, the luminosity estimator yields best-estimate luminosities that are accurate to a factor of ≈4, or best-estimate luminosity distances that are accurate to a factor of ≈2. Regardless of whether GRB 980425 should be included in the fit, its light curve is unique in that it is much less variable than the other ≈17 light curves of bursts in our sample for which the signal-to-noise ratio is reasonably good.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/66cc944039c15bdbfc21042736b5e432009be83b

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Citations in the corpus

• Afterglow light curves, viewing angle and the jet structure of γ-ray bursts (2001, background): “A luminosity function not based on assumed burst rate evolution can be derived by measuring the burst distance scale through the recently discovered variability-luminosity relation (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000, Reichart et al. 2001).”
• THE COSMIC RATE, LUMINOSITY FUNCTION, AND INTRINSIC CORRELATIONS OF LONG GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2009, background): “We can define an effective count rate Ceff = C √ fp/Tr45, where fp is the partial coding fraction resulting from the position of the GRB in the BAT field-of-view, and Tr45 is the high-signal time duration of Reichart et al. (2001).”
• A Cosmology-Independent Calibration of Gamma-Ray Burst Luminosity Relations and the Hubble Diagram (2008, background): “…luminosity-spectral lag (L-τlag) relation (Norris, Marani, & Bonnell 2000), the luminosity-variability (L-V ) relation (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000; Reichart et al. 2001), the isotropic energy-peak spectral energy ((EisoEp) relation (i.e., the so-called Amati relation, Amati et al. 2002), the…”
• X-Ray-rich Gamma-Ray Bursts, Photospheres, and Variability (2002, background): “An observational correlation (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000; Reichart et al. 2001) has been reported between the isotropic equivalent luminosity L and a variability measure V of the gamma-ray time profiles, of the form L / Vg; where g ’ 3:3þ2:5 1:1 : ð14Þ The operational definition of V is related…”
• Neutrinos from individual gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE catalog (2003, methodology): “The GRBs with observed redshifts have been used to empirically derive a relationship between the variability and the luminosity of the burst (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000; Reichart et al. 2001, Reichart & Lamb 2001): L/dΩ = 3.1× 1056V 3.35erg s−1.”
• The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, background): “Fenimore and Ramirez-Ruiz (2000) and Reichart et al. (2001) proposed a correlation between the GRB luminosity and the complexity of GRB lightcurves which they parametrize as “variability” V .”
• Model-independent Multivariable Gamma-Ray Burst Luminosity Indicator and Its Possible Cosmological Implications (2005, background): “Schaefer (2003) considered two other luminosity indicators proposed earlier, i.e. the variability (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000; Reichart et al. 2001) and the spectral lag (Norris, Marani, & Bonnell 2000), for nine GRBs with known redshifts, and pose an upper limit of ΩM < 0.35 (1σ) for a flat…”
• Long-Lag, Wide-Pulse Gamma-Ray Bursts (2005, background): “…to model bursts should be at least equal to the current number of luminosity and total energy indicators that have been proposed (e.g., spectral lag [Norris et al. 2000], variability [Reichart et al. 2001], and Epeak [Amati et al. 2002]), if in fact such parameters are completely independent.”
• DISCERNING THE PHYSICAL ORIGINS OF COSMOLOGICAL GAMMA-RAY BURSTS BASED ON MULTIPLE OBSERVATIONAL CRITERIA: THE CASES OF z = 6.7 GRB 080913, z = 8.2 GRB 090423, AND SOME SHORT/HARD GRBs (2009, background): “Observationally, indeed a positive L − V relation is observed, although with a large scatter (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 2000; Reichart et al. 2001; Guidorzi et al. 2006).”
• The physics of gamma-ray bursts (2004, background): “Phys., Vol. 76, No. 4, October 2004 Fenimore and Ramirez-Ruiz s2000; see also Reichart et al., 2001d discovered a correlation between the variability and the luminosity of the bursts.”
• The Ep,i–Eiso correlation in gamma-ray bursts: updated observational status, re-analysis and main implications (2006, methodology): “…these works are based on a likelihood function derived with a bayesian approach to the prob- lem; however, recently D’Agostini (2005) and Guidorzi et al. (2006) showed that the correct likelihood function is slightly different from that used by Reichart et al. (2001); Reichart & Nysewander (2006).”
• Implications of the Lag-Luminosity Relationship for Unified Gamma-Ray Burst Paradigms (2002, background): “Variability parameters correlated with GRB luminosity have also been reported (Fenimore & Ramirez-Ruiz 1999; Reichart et al. 2001).”
• Relativistic Jets in Collapsars (2002, background): “Perhaps this might help to explain the observed correlation between luminosity and variability (Reichart et al. 2001).”