Abstract
The triangulation, or arrival time analysis method of burst localization depends upon cross‐correlating the time histories of gamma‐ray bursts observed at different spacecraft. The statistical uncertainty in the burst position is directly related to the uncertainties in the cross correlation, specifically the statistical error in the lag between the time histories of spacecraft pairs. Here I describe one method for determining the most probable lag and its associated statistical error, which is based on a χ2 minimization technique. It is simple to understand (although not always to implement) and also has the advantage of indicating when two time histories of a given burst are dissimilar (e.g., because of a difference in the energy ranges of the experiments observing it). The results of Monte Carlo calculations will be presented to illustrate how the uncertainty in the lag scales with parameters such as the total number of counts detected, and the first derivative of the time history (a measure of the ‘‘spikiness’’). Applications to real data will also be discussed.

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