AAS Meeting #193 - Austin, Texas, January 1999
Session 42. Gamma-Rays/Gravitation
Display, Thursday, January 7, 1999, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibits Hall 1

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[42.09] Localizations of Gamma-Ray Bursts by the All-Sky Monitor on RXTE

D. A. Smith, H. V. D. Bradt, A. M. Levine, R. A. Remillard, L. Wen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), J. G. Jernigan, K. Hurley (University of California at Berkeley)

We report error boxes for thirteen gamma-ray bursts discovered so far in observations by the ASM with recently improved estimates of the position uncertainties. We have closely examined the efficacy of our analysis software by using it to locate X-ray sources whose positions are well-known. This has enabled us to characterize the shape of the error distribution and derive accurate confidence regions for the GRB detections. Five of the thirteen bursts were identified and localized in real-time, allowing searches for counterparts at optical and radio wavelengths. An arcminute position for GRB 980703 was distributed within 12 h of the burst trigger, leading to the detection of a host galaxy at a redshift of 0.9960±.0002 (Djorgovski et al., GCN 139, 1998). We report on recent and planned improvements to our real-time GRB detection and position distribution program.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: dasmith@space.mit.edu

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