Hardness Test of GRB 950830 as a Gravitationally Lensed Echo

Document Type

Response or Comment

Publication Date

5-2021

Department

Department of Physics

Abstract

Cumulative hardness comparisons are a simple but statistically powerful test for the presence of gravitational lensing in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Since gravitational lensing does not change photon energies, all source images should have the same spectra—and hence hardness. Applied to the recent claim that the two pulses in GRB 950830 are lensed images of the same pulse, the measured flux ratio between the two main pulses should be the same at all energies. After summing up all the counts in both of GRB 950830's two pulses in all four BATSE energy bands, it was found that in energy channel 3, the second pulse appears somewhat weak. In comparison with the other BATSE energy channels, the difference was statistically significant at above 90%. This model-independent test indicates that the case for GRB 950830 involving a gravitational lens may be intriguing—but should not be considered proven.

Publisher's Statement

© 2021. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.3847/2515-5172/abfdbd

Publication Title

Research Notes of the AAS

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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