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J.P. Norris (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
Without redshifts, studies of the pulse structures in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) were largely phenomenological. Now that approximately twenty GRBs have associated redshifts, it is clear that cosmological GRBs exhibit a large dynamic range in observed luminosity and total energy. Thus from afterglow measurements, inferences on the physics of GRB spectral/temporal properties become possible. For a subset of bursts where redshifts and BATSE data are available, a correlation between luminosity and spectral lag has been reported (Norris, Marani & Bonnell 2001, ApJ 534, 248). It has also been demonstrated from breaks in GRB afterglow temporal decays (e.g., Frail et al. 2001, ApJL, accepted) that GRBs manifest a wide dynamic range in opening angle, or beaming fraction -- implying more uniform isotropic luminosities and energies for GRBs. Even more exciting, the beaming fraction and average spectral lag appear to be correlated (both being related to luminosity), signaling a profound, but indirect, link between the gamma-ray and afterglow phases. While the sample is still small, and the analysis techniques for beaming fraction and spectral lag are still being refined, it is possible to extend observed BATSE distributions and prognosticate on distributional properties of GRBs, such as luminosity and redshift, that should be observable by Swift.