The angular correlation function of gamma-ray bursts

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Abstract
We have calculated the angular correlation function for 260 bursts from the first BATSE catalog (1B). We have also combined the data with previous catalogs to increase the sample size to N=474. The sky exposure map of BATSE is included in the analysis. No significant correlations were found on any angular scale. If GRBs autocorrelate like galaxies the lack of observed clustering yields a minimum detector sampling depth of ∼200 h−1 75 Mpc, corresponding to a minimum survey redshift of ∼0.05. Cosmological models in which bursts trace the large scale distribution of galaxies to redshifts of order unity are consistent with the data. In addition, we also discuss the implications of the observed lack of clustering for Galactic distribution models. For exponential disk models the lack of large‐scale clustering implies a maximum sampling depth of ∼1 scale height. Clustering limits can also be used to constrain burst recurrence rates. This question, however, is discussed in a related paper in conjunction with the burster nearest neighbor statistic.

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