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Session 101 - X-rays and X-ray Bursts.
Display session, Thursday, January 16
Metropolitan Ballroom,
Despite a quarter century of research, the origin and distance scale of cosmic gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remain a mystery. We have completed a deep, near-infrared imaging survey of the smallest GRB localizations from the 3rd Interplanetary Network to examine the extragalactic content of these regions. Not only do suitable host galaxies reside in each of the ten error boxes, these observations have revealed a statistically significant overabundance of brighter galaxies compared to large-scale surveys and our own control fields. In addition to their profusion, these galaxies have many other characteristics which support an association with GRBs. Among these links are their estimated distance, intrinsic luminosity, inferred burst energy, and location within the error boxes. These results offer the first direct connection between GRBs and another class of objects, yet they appear to contradict the results of previous surveys using 1st Interplanetary Network localizations.
