The Role of the BATSE Instrument Response in Creating the Gamma-Ray Burst E-Peak Distribution

Abstract

All gamma-ray bursts are observed to have approximately the same characteristic gamma-ray energy. We show in this article that for bursts in the BATSE data set, this property as measured by the E-peak value is not an instrumental effect, but a physical property of gamma-ray bursts.

Presented at the 20 Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, December 1998, Paris, France. To appear on the proceedings compact disk