A ROSAT Deep Survey of Four Small Gamma-Ray Burst Error Boxes
Abstract
We have used the ROSAT High Resolution Imager to search for quiescent X-ray counterparts to four gamma-ray bursts which were localized to small (< 10 sq. arcmin.) error boxes with the Interplanetary Network. The observations took place years after the bursts, and the effective exposure times for each target varied from ~16 - 23 ks. We have not found any X-ray sources inside any of the error boxes. The 0.1 - 2.4 keV 3 sigma flux upper limits range from around 5 x 10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1 to 6 x 10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 depending on the burst and the assumed shape of the quiescent spectrum. We consider four types of X-ray emitting galaxies (normal, AGN, faint, and star-forming) and use the flux upper limits to constrain their redshifts. We then use the GRB fluences to constrain the total energies of the bursts.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9903385,
title = {A ROSAT Deep Survey of Four Small Gamma-Ray Burst Error Boxes},
author = {K. Hurley and P. Li and M. Boer and T. Cline and G. J. Fishman and C. Meegan and C. Kouveliotou and J. Greiner and J. Laros and C. Luginbuhl and F. Vrba and T. Murakami and H. Pedersen and J. van Paradijs},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9903385},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
16 pages, 4 figures; submitted to the Astrophysical Journal