FTP archive of gamma ray bursts found in the continuous BATSE daily records

This ftp archive contains the sample of 3906 gamma ray bursts recorded by the Burst And Transient Sources Experiment (BATSE) onboard Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. This is the largest sample of GRBs existing now. All events of this sample were found during an off-line scan of the 1.024 s time resolution data from the archive of the Goddard Space Flight Center covering the whole period of BATSE observation.

Almost half of these GRBs (1838) were missed by BATSE onboard trigger as they were too weak or occurred during BATSE dead time (non-triggered GRBs). The brightness range of this sample extends down to peak fluxes 0.1 ph/cm^2/s which is by factor 2 lower than BATSE trigger threshold.

The off-line scan was performed by B.Stern et al. About this search see
(all publications are included in the directory "papers" of this archive):
1) Stern, B.E., Tikhomirova, Ya., Stepanov, M., Kompaneets, D., Berezhnoy, A., &Svensson, R. 1999, A&AS, 138, 413S (ps.gz file),
2) Stern, B.E., Tikhomirova, Ya., Kompaneets, D., Stepanov, M., Berezhnoy, A., &Svensson, R. 1999, in ASP Conf. Series 190, Gamma-Ray Bursts: The First Three Minutes, ed.J.Poutanen,&R.Svensson (San Francisco:ASP), 253 (ps.gz file),
3) Stern, B.E., Tikhomirova, Ya., Stepanov, M., Kompaneets, D., Berezhnoy, A., &Svensson, R. 2000, ApJL, 540, L21 (ps.gz file),
4) Stern, B.E., Tikhomirova, Ya., Kompaneets, D., Stepanov, M., Berezhnoy, A., &Svensson, R. 2000, in Proc. of the Fifth Huntsville Symposium on Gamma-Ray Bursts, ed.R.M.Kippen, R.S.Malozzi, &V.Connaughton, (New York:AIP), 13 (ps.gz file),
5) Stern, B.E., Tikhomirova, Ya., Kompaneets, D., Svensson, R., &Poutanen, J. 2001, ApJ, 563, 80 (ps.gz file).

Both non-triggered and triggered bursts found in the scan are included in the archive. Triggered bursts were identified with the BATSE GRBs catalog.

Data about all bursts are represented in the same form with parameters estimated by the same procedure. This was done in order to create a UNIFORM sample of GRBs. The important feature of the scan is a simultaneous measurement of its efficiency by the TEST BURSTS method. BATSE triggers and Kommers' events missed in the scan are not included into the sample for the sake of its uniformity.

The archive contains individual and summarized data on 3906 Gamma Ray Bursts (1838 non-triggered and 2068 triggered). They were observed by BATSE from april 21, 1991 (TJD8369) till may 26, 2000 (TJD11690).

Note, that ALL DATA IN THE ARCHIVE ARE PRELIMINARY AND MAY BE CHANGED in the nearest future. We inform you about all corrections and additions in the "Updates" file.

Updates

Data in the directories "catalogs", "distributions", "profiles", "test_bursts" will be completed in the nearest future.

The archive includes the following directories:

-catalogs
-distributions
-net_signals
-papers
-profiles
-raw_data
-test_bursts

with the corresponding data:

/catalogs: a few catalogs of BATSE bursts found in the scan representing different attributes of the events
(ascii format);

/distributions: log N - log P, detection efficiency, angular distributions, test distributions etc. given as numerical data and figures (ps and gif format);

/net_signals: time profiles (light curves) obtained using the best fit incident photon flux (data for 4 energy channels are given)
(ascii format);

/papers: publications with description of our scan and with some results
(ps,pdf formats);

/profiles: time profiles (light curves) in the simplest and the most compact form: count rates summed up over the two brightest detectors, and the energy channels #2 + #3
(ascii format);

/raw_data: fragments of original BATSE daily records (DISCLA) containing GRBs
(fits format);

/test_bursts: catalogs of test bursts added to the data (both those found and those missed in the scan)
(ascii format).

We are grateful to R.Svensson and Y.Poutanen for support and assistance with this archive.
The work was supported by the Swedish Natural Science Research Council, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science,the Wennergren Foundation for Scientific Research, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 00-02-16135).

If you have some questions or remarks about the archive, please, contact

We would be grateful if you will inform us about any errors in the archive.