AAS 200th meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June 2002
Session 6. Cosmology, The Early Universe
Display, Monday, June 3, 2002, 9:20am-6:30pm, SW Exhibit Hall

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[6.05] Can Gamma-ray Bursts Help Constrain Cosmological Parameters?

J. M. Anderson (NMT/NRAO)

Although Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are observed to have a wide range of apparent burst energies, recent studies suggest that beaming significantly affects the observed fluxes. Correcting for this effect, Frail et al. (2001) find that GRBs have a common burst energy with a 1~\sigma multiplicative spread of 2.0. This is small enough to provide interesting constraints on the cosmological parameters \Omega\mathrm M and \Omega\mathrm\Lambda when combined with available type~1a supernovae data. GRBs are currently detected to much higher redshifts than supernovae, allowing improved tests of dust/dark energy models to be made. If GRBs are conclusively shown to be monoenergetic, they will provide a useful probe of cosmology at moderately high redshifts.


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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.