IAU00696
Presentation type requested: POSTER
THE SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURSTS: AN UNSOLVED PUZZLE
Attila Meszaros
Astr. Inst. Charles Univ., Prague, Czech Republic
The gamma-ray bursts may well be separated with respect to their observed durations into two subgroups: the short (long) subgroup has a duration shorter (longer) than 2 sec. But only recently is finally shown by the authors (A&A, in press, astro-ph/0301262) that these two subgroups of the gamma-ray bursts are different physical phenomena. This result is fully model independent, and follows exclusively from the statistical analysis of the observations using the Cramer theorem. Because, due to the observational restrictions, no afterglows are known for the short subgroup, the puzzles concerning the short bursts remain. Even the redshifts are not known for them. In the contribution some open questions in the topic of short bursts are surveyed.
Balazs Lajos , Bagoly Zsolt , Horvath Istvan , Meszaros Peter
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