Multifrequency Observations of Gamma-Ray Burst.pdfVIP

a s t r o - p h / 9 5 1 0 0 1 5 4 O c t 1 9 9 5 MULTIFREQUENCY OBSERVATIONS OF GAMMA-RAYBURSTSJOCHEN GREINERMax-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, 85740 Garching, GermanyABSTRACT. Neither a aring nor a quiescent counterpart to a gamma-ray burst has yet beenconvincingly identied at any wavelength region. The present status of the search for counterparts ofclassical gamma-ray bursts is given. Particular emphasis is put on the search for aring counterparts,i.e. emission during or shortly after the gamma-ray emission.1. IntroductionThere are increasing doubts that the puzzle of -ray bursts (GRBs) will be solved bysimply accumulating more events with the gamma-ray detectors currently in operation.While the solution might come with an unpredictable circumstance, the identication ofa GRB counterpart at any other wavelength is generally believed to be one of the mostobvious possible ways to unveil the enigma. This belief manifests itself in the suddenincrease in activity over the last 1{2 years in all major wavelangth bands.Counterpart searches are hampered by many unknowns. It is not known whether aGRB will cause a permanent change in the emission in one or several wavelength bands,or will yield a multiwavelength transient event. If there is a transient event at otherenergies correlated with a GRB, it is not known whether it occurs before, during orafter the -ray event and how long it might last.The counterpart search is most promising in a few specic energy bands for verydierent reasons: First of all, there are the adjacent energy ranges at GeV and softX-rays where some GRBs have been seen to emit part of their power. But in addition,radio observations seem to combine two other advantages: (1) Basically all known -ray sources are also radio emitters, in most cases even strongly variable and thus easyto discover. (2) If GRBs are indeed at cosmological distances as suggested by theirisotropy and non-homogeneity, then the dispersion will delay the