Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2007-08-10
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 677, Issue 2, pp. 1157-1167 (2008)
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
edited, accepted by ApJ
Scientific paper
10.1086/533427
Studies of GRB host galaxies are crucial to understanding GRBs. However, since they are identified by the superposition in the plane of the sky of a GRB afterglow and a galaxy there is always a possibility that an association represents a chance alignment, rather than a physical connection. We examine a uniform sample of 72 GRB fields to explore the probability of chance superpositions. There is typically a ~1% chance that an optical afterglow will coincide with a galaxy by chance. While spurious host galaxy detections will, therefore, be rare, the possibility must be considered when examining individual GRB/host galaxy examples. It is also tempting to use the large and uniform collection of X-ray afterglow positions to search for GRB-associated galaxies. However, we find that approximately half of the 14 superpositions in our sample are likely to occur by chance, so in the case of GRBs localized only by an X-ray afterglow, even statistical studies are suspect.
Bailyn Charles D.
Cobb Bethany E.
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