Latent characterization of the complete BATSE gamma-ray bursts catalogue using Gaussian mixture of factor analysers and model-estimated overlap-based syncytial clustering

Authors

Fan Dai, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Ranjan Maitra, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2024

Department

Department of Mathematical Sciences

Abstract

Characterizing and distinguishing gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has interested astronomers for many decades. While some authors have found two or three groups of GRBs by analysing only a few parameters, recent work identified five ellipsoidally shaped groups upon considering nine parameters T50, T90, F1, F2, F3, F4, P64, P256, P1024. Yet others suggest subclasses within the two or three groups found earlier. Using a mixture model of Gaussian factor analysers, we analysed 1150 GRBs, that had nine parameters observed, from the current Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) catalogue, and again established five ellipsoidal-shaped groups to describe the GRBs. These five groups are characterized in terms of their average duration, fluence, and spectrum as shorter-faint-hard, long-intermediate-soft, long-intermediate-intermediate, long-bright-intermediate, and short-faint-hard. The use of factor analysers in describing individual group densities allows for a more thorough group-wise characterization of the parameters in terms of a few latent features. However, given the discrepancy with many other existing studies that advocated for two or three groups, we also performed model-estimated overlap-based syncytial clustering that successively merges poorer separated groups. The five ellipsoidal groups merge into three and then into two groups, one with GRBs of low durations and the other having longer duration GRBs. These groups are also characterized in terms of a few latent factors made up of the nine parameters. Our analysis provides context for all three sets of results, and in doing so, details a multilayered characterization of the BATSE GRBs, while also explaining the structure in their variability.

Publisher's Statement

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2548

Publication Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Recommended Citation

Dai, F., & Maitra, R. (2024). Latent characterization of the complete BATSE gamma-ray bursts catalogue using Gaussian mixture of factor analysers and model-estimated overlap-based syncytial clustering. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 535(4), 3396-3409. http://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae2548
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/1279

Creative Commons License

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

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Publisher's PDF