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# Absence of Asymptotic Freedom in Non-Abelian Models

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## Abstract

The percolation properties of equatorial strips of the two dimensional $`O(3)`$ nonlinear $`\sigma `$ model are investigated numerically. Convincing evidence is found that a sufficently narrow strip does not percolate at arbitrarily low temperatures. Rigorous arguments are used to show that this result implies both the presence of a massless phase at low temperature and lack of asymptotic freedom in the massive continuum limit. A heuristic estimate of the transition temperature is given which is consistent with the numerical data.

64.60.Cn, 05.50.+q, 75.10.Hk

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One of the crucial unanswered problems in particle and condensed matter physics concerns the phase diagram of the two dimensional ($`2D`$) nonlinear $`\sigma `$ models . It is widely believed that the nonabelian models with $`N3`$ are in a massive phase for any finite inverse temperature $`\beta `$ and that this is intimately related to their perturbative asymptotic freedom. Over the years we have brought forth many reasons why we think that these beliefs are unfounded , but the absence of a mathematical proof combined with ambiguous numerical results left the issues wide open. In the present letter we would like to provide convincing numerical evidence that in fact the $`2D`$ $`O(3)`$ model possesses a massless phase for sufficiently large $`\beta `$ and give a rigorous proof that this is incompatible with asymptotic freedom in the massive phase. We will also give a heuristic explanation of why and where the phase transition happens.

The models we are considering consist of unit length spins $`s`$ taking values on the sphere $`S^{N1}`$, placed at the sites of a $`2D`$ regular lattice. These spins interact ferromagnetically with their nearest neighbors. Let $`ij`$ denote a pair of neighboring sites. We will consider two types of interactions between neighbouring spins:

* Standard action (s.a.): $`H_{ij}=s(i)s(j)`$
* Constrained action (c.a.): $`H_{ij}=s(i)s(j)`$ for $`s(i)s(j)c`$ and $`H_{ij}=\mathrm{}`$ for $`s(i)s(j)<c`$ for some $`c[1,1)`$.

Almost a decade ago we showed  that one can rephrase the issue regarding the existence of a soft phase in these models as a percolation problem and in fact this is the reason we introduced the c.a. model (please note that the c.a. model has the same perturbative expansion as the s.a. model and possesses instantons). Namely let $`ϵ=\sqrt{2(1c)}`$ and $`S_ϵ`$ the set of sites such that $`|sn|<ϵ/2`$ for some given unit vector $`n`$. Our rigorous result was that if on the triangular (T) lattice the set $`S_ϵ`$ does not contain a percolating cluster, then the $`O(N)`$ model must be massless at that $`c`$. For the abelian $`O(2)`$ model we could prove the absence of percolation of this equatorial set $`S_ϵ`$ for $`c`$ sufficiently large  (modulo certain technical assumptions which were later eliminated by M. Aizenman ). For the nonabelian cases we could not give a rigorous proof. We did however present certain arguments  explaining why the percolating scenario seemed unlikely.

In this letter we will give convincing numerical evidence that a sufficiently narrow equatorial strip does not percolate for any $`c`$. We will also show that via a rigorous inequality derived by us in the past , the existence of a finite $`\beta _{crt}`$ in the s.a. model on the square (S) lattice is incompatible with the presence of asymptotic freedom in the massive continuum limit.

For clarity we will review first a few crucial points regarding percolation in $`2D`$:
a) Let $`A`$ be a subset of the lattice defined by the spin lying in some subset $`𝒜S^{N1}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ its complement. Then with probability 1 $`A`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ do not percolate at the same time. (For this point it is crucial that the lattice is self matching, hence our use of the T instead of the S lattice; on the latter an ordinarily connected cluster can be stopped by a cluster connected only $``$-wise, i.e. also diagonally.) This fact has been proven rigorously only for special cases like the $`+`$ and $``$ clusters of the Ising model, but is believed to hold generally.
b) If neither $`A`$ nor its complement $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ percolate, then the expected size of the cluster of $`A`$ attached to the origin, denoted by $`A`$ of $`A`$, diverges; the same holds for its complement $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ (Russo’s lemma ). (If $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ percolates, then $`A`$ is finite.)

Let then $`𝒫_ϵ`$ (the union of the polar caps) be the complement of $`𝒮_ϵ`$ (the equatorial strip of width $`ϵ`$). According to the discussion above, either $`S_ϵ`$ percolates, or $`P_ϵ`$ percolates, or neither $`S_ϵ`$ nor $`P_ϵ`$ percolates and then both have divergent mean size (we shall call this third possibility in short formation of rings). Consider a sequence of tori of increasing size $`L`$ and the mean cluster size of the set $`A`$ corresponding to a subset $`𝒜S^{N1}`$ of positive measure. If $`A`$ percolates $`A=O(L^2)`$, if its complement percolates $`A`$ will approach a finite nonzero value, and if $`A`$ forms rings $`A=O(L^{2\eta })`$ for some $`\eta >0`$. Therefore, if we define the ratio

$$r=P_ϵ/S_ϵ,$$
(1)
for $`L\mathrm{}`$ it should either go to 0, or to $`\mathrm{}`$ or to some finite nonzero value depending on which one of the three possibilities is realized; the latter possibility assumes that $`\eta `$ is the same for $`P_ϵ`$ and $`S_ϵ`$, as indicated by our numerics and consistent with scaling.

In Fig.1 we show the numerical value of the ratio $`r`$ as function of $`c`$ for $`\beta =0`$ for four values of $`ϵ`$ for the c.a. model on a T lattice.

The results were obtained from a Monte Carlo (MC) investigation using an $`O(3)`$ version of the Swendsen-Wang cluster algorithm and consist of a minimum of 20,000 lattice configurations used for taking measurements. For each value of $`ϵ`$ we studied $`L=160`$, 320 and 640 (for $`ϵ=.78`$ we also studied $`L=1280`$). Three distinct regimes are manifest for each of the four values of $`ϵ`$ investigated:

* For small $`c`$, $`r`$ is increasing with $`L`$, presumably diverging to $`\mathrm{}`$ (region 1).
* For intermediate $`c`$, $`r`$ is decreasing with $`L`$, presumably converging to 0 (region 2).
* For $`c`$ sufficiently large depending upon $`ϵ`$, $`r`$ becomes independent of $`L`$, just as it does at the crossings from region 1 into 2.

Consequently for these values of $`ϵ`$ for small $`c`$ $`P_ϵ`$ percolates, for intermediate $`c`$ $`S_ϵ`$ percolates and for sufficiently large $`c`$ both $`P_ϵ`$ and $`S_ϵ`$ form rings. In Fig.2 we present the phase diagram of the c.a. model on the T lattice for $`\beta =0`$. The dashed line $`D`$ represents the minimal equatorial width above which $`S_ϵ`$ percolates. For $`c=1`$ (no constraint) the model reduces to independent site percolation, for which the percolation threshold is known rigorously to be $`ϵ=1`$. The rest of the diagram represents qualitatively the results of our investigation of the ratio $`r`$, such as those shown in Fig.1. Two features of this diagram are worth emphasizing:
1. An equatorial strip of width less than approximately $`ϵ=.76`$ never percolates.
2. For approximately $`c>0.4`$ a new phase opens up in which both $`P_ϵ`$ and $`S_ϵ`$ form rings (the dotted line separates it from percolation of $`P_ϵ`$).

For clarity let us briefly review the argument indicating that this phase diagram is incompatible with the existence of a massive phase for arbitrarily large $`c`$. Choosing an arbitrary unit vector $`n`$, one introduces Ising variables $`\sigma =\pm 1`$. The s.a. Hamiltonian becomes:

$$H_{ij}=\sigma _i\sigma _j|s_{}(i)s_{}(j)|+s_{}(i)s_{}(j)$$
(2)
where $`s_{}(i)=s(i)n`$ and $`s_{}(i)=(s(i)\times n)\times n`$. One thus obtains an induced Ising model for which the Fortuin-Kastleyn (FK) representation  is applicable. In this representation the Ising system is mapped into a bond percolation problem: between any like neighboring Ising spins a bond is placed with probability $`p=1\mathrm{exp}(2\beta s_{}(i)s_{}(j))`$. For the c.a. model a bond is also placed if after flipping one of the two neighboring Ising spins the constraint $`s(i)s(j)c`$ is violated. The FK representation relates the mean cluster size of the site clusters joined by occupied bonds (FK-clusters) to the Ising magnetic susceptibility. In a massive phase the latter must remain finite. Hence, if the FK-clusters have divergent mean size, the original $`O(3)`$ ferromagnet must be massless (the Ising variables $`\sigma `$ are local functions of the originally spin variables $`s`$).

Now notice that by construction for the c.a. model the FK-clusters with say $`\sigma =+1`$ must contain all sites with $`s(i)n>\sqrt{(1c)/2}`$. Therefore the model must be massless if clusters obeying this condition have divergent mean size. But the polar set $`P_ϵ`$ consists of two disjoint components $`P_ϵ^+`$ (north) and $`P_ϵ^{}`$ (south). For $`c>(1ϵ^2)/2`$ there are no clusters containing both elements of $`P_ϵ^+`$ and $`P_ϵ^{}`$. Hence if for such values of $`c`$ clusters of $`P_ϵ`$ form rings, so do clusters of $`P_ϵ^+`$ separately and hence the $`O(3)`$ model must be massless. The curve $`C`$ given by $`c=(1ϵ^2)/2`$ is the solid line in Fig.2. The point $`T`$ at the intersection of the curves $`D`$ and $`C`$ gives an upper bound for $`c_{crt}`$, the value of $`c`$ above which the c.a. model must be massless.

To verify the phase diagram in Fig.2 we also measured (at $`\beta =0`$) the ratio of the mean cluster size of the set $`P_ϵ^{}^+`$ with $`ϵ^{}=.5`$ to that of the set $`S_ϵ`$ with $`ϵ=0.75`$, for which the equatorial strip never percolates (Fig.3) ($`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ ar chosen such that the two sets have equal density). The data indicate that for some intermediate values of $`c`$ $`P_ϵ^{}^+`$ forms rings while $`S_ϵ`$ has finite mean size; this region terminates around $`c=0.4`$, where also $`S_ϵ`$ starts forming rings. The larger average cluster size of the polar cap compared to the strip of the same area is probably due to the fact that the strip has a larger boundary than the polar cap. This is in agreement with a general conjecture stated in , namely that for $`c`$ sufficiently large, if two sets have equal area but different perimeters, the one with the smaller perimeter will have larger average cluster size. For the case at hand, this is apparently true for all values of $`c`$.

The general belief, which we criticized in ref.,is that there is a fundamental difference between abelian and nonabelian models. To test this belief we studied the ratio $`r`$ for the c.a. $`O(2)`$ model on the T lattice. The phase diagram is shown in Fig.4. Since in the $`O(2)`$ model the set $`𝒫_ϵ`$ can also be regarded as a set $`𝒮_{\stackrel{~}{ϵ}}`$ where $`\stackrel{~}{ϵ}=\sqrt{(4ϵ^2)}`$, certain features of that diagram follow from rigorous arguments. For instance it is clear that in the c.a. model there exist two curves $`C`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{C}`$ and in the region to their right the model must be massless . The precise location of the curves $`D`$ (or $`\stackrel{~}{D}`$) must be determined numerically, something which we did not do. We did verify though that the ring formation region begins around $`c=0.5`$.

In our opinion the arguments and numerical evidence provided so far give strong indications that the c.a. models on the T lattice possess a massless phase. Universality would suggest that a similar situation must exist for the s.a. models on the T and S lattices. To test universality we measured on the S lattice the renormalized coupling both on thermodynamic lattices in the massive phase and in finite volume in the presumed critical regime (as in ). Our data for the c.a. model on the S lattice only determine an interval (about $`.5`$ to $`.7`$) in which the massless phase of the model sets in; we tried to see if we could get a similar $`L`$ dependence for the renormalized coupling in the s.a. model at a suitable $`\beta `$ as for $`c=.61`$ in the c.a. model at $`\beta =0`$. This seems to be indeed the case for $`\beta `$ roughly $`3.4`$. We went only up to $`L=640`$, hence this equivalence between $`c`$ and $`\beta `$ should be considered only as a rough approximation, but there seems to be no doubt that the two models have the same continuum limit.

It is intersting to note that there is a heuristic explanation for both the existence of a massless phase in the s.a. $`O(3)`$ model and for the value of $`\beta _{\mathrm{𝑐𝑟𝑡}}`$. Indeed it is known rigorously that in $`2D`$ a continuous symmetry cannot be broken at any finite $`\beta `$. In a previuos paper  we showed that the dominant configurations at large $`\beta `$ are not instantons but superinstantons (s.i.). In principle both instantons and s.i. could enforce the $`O(3)`$ symmetry. In a box of diameter $`R`$ the former have a minimal energy $`E_{\mathrm{𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡}}=4\pi `$  while the latter $`E_{s.i.}=\delta ^2\pi /\mathrm{ln}R`$, where $`\delta `$ is the angle by which the spin has rotated over the distance $`R`$. Now suppose that $`\beta _{\mathrm{𝑐𝑟𝑡}}`$ is sufficiently large for classical configurations to be dominant. Then let us choose $`\delta =2\pi `$ (restoration of symmetry) and ask how large must $`R`$ be so that the superinstanton configuration has the same energy as one instanton. One finds $`\mathrm{ln}R=\pi ^2`$. But in the Gaussian approximation

$$s(0)s(x)1\frac{1}{\beta \pi }\mathrm{ln}x$$
(3)
Thus restoration of symmetry occurs for $`\mathrm{ln}x\pi \beta `$. This simpleminded argument suggests that for $`\beta \pi `$ instantons become less important than s.i.. Now in a gas of s.i. the image of any small patch of the sphere forms rings, hence the system is massless. While this is not a quantitative argument, we believe it captures qualitatively what happens: a transition from localized defects (instantons) to s.i..

Next let us discuss the connection between a finite $`\beta _{crt}`$ and the absence of asymptotic freedom. It follows from our earlier work concerning the conformal properties of the critical $`O(2)`$ model . We refer the reader for details to that paper and give only an outline of the argument. The s.a. lattice $`O(N)`$ model possesses a conserved isospin current. This currrent can be decomposed into a transverse and longitudinal part. Let $`F^T(p)`$ and $`F^L(p)`$ denote the thermodynamic values of the 2-point functions of the transverse and longitudinal parts at momentum $`p`$, respectively. Using reflection positivity and a Ward identity we proved that in the massive continuum limit the following inequalities must hold for any $`p0`$:

$$0F^T(p)F^T(0)=F^L(0)F^L(p)=2\beta E/N$$
(4)
Here $`E`$ is the expectation value of the energy

$$E=s(i)s(j)$$

at inverse temperature $`\beta `$. Since $`E1`$ it follws that if $`\beta _{\mathrm{𝑐𝑟𝑡}}<\mathrm{}`$ $`F^T(0)F^T(p)`$ cannot diverge for $`p\mathrm{}`$ as required by perturbative asymptotic freedom. In fact, for $`\beta _{crt}=3.4`$ (which is a plausible guess) $`F^T(p)`$ must be less than 2.27, in violation of the form factor computation giving $`F^T(0)F^T(\mathrm{})>3.651`$ .

Since the implications of our result, that for the c.a. model a suffciently narrow equatorial strip never percolates, are so dramatic, the reader may wonder how credible are the numerics. The usual suspect, the random number generator, should not be important since precision is not the issue here. The only debatable point is whether our results represent the true thermodynamic behaviour for $`L\mathrm{}`$ or are merely small volume artefacts. While we cannot rule out rigorously that scenario, certain features of the data make it highly implausible:

* Small volume effects should set in gradually, while the data in Fig.1 indicate a rather abrupt change from a region where $`r`$ is decreasing with $`L`$ to one where $`r`$ is essentially independent of $`L`$.
* For $`c1`$ at fixed $`L`$, $`r`$ must approach the ‘geometric’ value $`r=2/ϵ1`$. As can be seen, in all the cases studied, throughout the ‘ring’ region $`r`$ is clearly larger than this value, while it should go to 0 if $`S_ϵ`$ percolated.
* In Fig.3 there is no indication of the ratio going to 0 for increasing $`L`$. Moreover the dramatic change in slope around $`c=.4`$ indicates that the polar cap $`P_ϵ^{}`$ starts forming rings at a smaller value of $`c`$ than the equatorial strip $`S_ϵ`$.

Thus we doubt very much that the effects we are seeing represent small volume artefacts. Moreover, if $`s_z`$ remained massive at low temperature and in fact an arbitrarily narrow equatorial strip percolated, one would have to explain away our old paradox : if such a narrow strip percolated, an even larger strip would percolate and on it one would have an induced $`O(2)`$ model in its massless phase, in contradiction to the Mermin-Wagner theorem.

Consequently we are confident that the phase diagram in Fig.2 represents the truth, that a soft phase exists both in the s.a. and the c.a. model and that the massive continuum limit of the $`O(3)`$ model is not asymptotically free. In a previous paper  we have already shown that in nonabelian models even at short distances perturbation theory produces ambiguous answers. The present result sharpens that result by eliminating the possibility of asymptotic freedom.

Acknowledgement: AP is grateful to the Humboldt Foundation for a Senior US Scientist Award and to the Werner-Heisenberg-Institut for its hospitality.


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# Top Spin and Experimental Tests*footnote **footnote *Contribution to the Thinkshop on Top-Quark Physics for the Tevatron Run II, Fermilab, October 16 - 18, 1999.

## I Introduction

Evidence to date is circumstantial that the top events analyzed in Tevatron experiments are attributable to a spin-1/2 parent. The evidence comes primarily from consistency of the distribution in momentum of the decay products with the pattern expected for the weak decay $`tb+W`$, with $`Wł+\nu `$ or $`W\mathrm{jets}`$, where the top $`t`$ is assumed to have spin-1/2.

It is valuable to ask whether more definitive evidence for spin-1/2 might be obtained in future experiments at the Tevatron and LHC. We take one look at this question by studying the differential cross section $`d\sigma /dM_{t\overline{t}}`$ in the region near production threshold. Here $`M_{t\overline{t}}`$ is the invariant mass of the $`t\overline{t}`$ pair. We contrast the behavior of $`t\overline{t}`$ production with that expected for production of a pair of spin-0 objects. We are motivated by the fact that in electron-positron annihilation, $`e^++e^{}q+\overline{q}`$, there is a dramatic difference in energy dependence of the cross section in the near-threshold region for quark spin assignments of 0 and 1/2.

For definiteness, we compare top quark $`t`$ and top squark $`\stackrel{~}{t}`$ production since a consistent phenomenology exists for top squark pair production, obviating the need to invent a model of scalar quark production. Moreover, top squark decay may well mimic top quark decay. Indeed, if the chargino $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }`$ is lighter than the light top squark, as is true in many models of supersymmetry breaking, the dominant decay of the top squark is $`\stackrel{~}{t}b+\stackrel{~}{\chi }^+`$. If there are no sfermions lighter than the chargino, the chargino decays to a W and the lightest neutralino $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^o`$. In another interesting possible decay mode, the chargino decays into a lepton and slepton, $`\stackrel{~}{\chi }^+\mathrm{}^+\stackrel{~}{\nu }`$. The upshot is that decays of the top squark may be very similar to those of the top quark, but have larger values of missing energy and softer momenta of the visible decay products. A recent study for Run II of the Tevatron  concluded that even with $`4\mathrm{fb}^1`$ of data at the Tevatron, and including the LEP limits on chargino masses, these decay modes remain open (though constrained) for top squarks with mass close to the top quark mass .

## II Calculation and Results

At the energy of the Fermilab Tevatron, production of $`t\overline{t}`$ pairs and of $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ pairs is dominated by $`q\overline{q}`$ annihilation, where the initial light quarks $`q`$ are constituents of the initial hadrons. The subprocess proceeds through a single intermediate gluon at leading-order in QCD perturbation theory. The analogy to $`e\overline{e}q\overline{q}`$ through an intermediate virtual photon is evident. We choose to work at leading-order in the $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ partonic cross sections.

In Fig. 1(a) we display the partonic cross sections $`\widehat{\sigma }(\sqrt{\widehat{s}})`$ as functions of the partonic subenergy $`\sqrt{\widehat{s}}`$ for the $`q\overline{q}`$ channel, where $`q`$ represents a single flavor of massless quark. We use the nominal value $`m_t=`$ 175 GeV for the mass of the top quark. We select $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}=`$ 165 GeV for the mass of the top squark so that the maximum values of the partonic cross sections occur at about the same value of $`\sqrt{\widehat{s}}`$ in $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ production. Although the coupling strengths $`g`$, where $`\alpha _s=g^2/(4\pi )`$, are the same in the amplitudes for $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ production, the magnitude of the $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ partonic cross section is a factor of $`0.015`$ smaller at the peak. The reduction comes in part from the final-state sum over spins and in part from the momentum dependence of the p-wave coupling for $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ production.

If we ignore relative normalization, the very different threshold energy dependences of the $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ cross sections in Fig. 1(a) suggest that spin discrimination might be possible if one could study the pair mass distribution, $`d\sigma /dM_{t\overline{t}}`$. However, in hadron reactions, one observes the cross section only after convolution with parton densities.

In Fig. 1(b), we display the hadronic cross sections for $`p\overline{p}t\overline{t}X`$ and $`p\overline{p}\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{\overline{t}}X`$ at proton-antiproton center-of-mass energy 2 TeV as a function of pair mass. We use the CTEQ5L parton densities with the factorization scale $`\mu `$ chosen equal to the top quark mass for $`t\overline{t}`$ production, and the top squark mass for $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ production. We include the relatively small contributions from the glue-glue initial state. The parton luminosities fall steeply with subenergy so the tails at high pair mass evident in Fig. 1(a) are cut-off sharply in Fig. 1(b). Indeed, the convolution with parton densities sharpens the peak of the $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ pair mass distribution significantly and makes it resemble a background that is similar to $`t\overline{t}`$ production. The top squark cross section is approximately 12% of the top cross section. The smaller value is due in part to the fact that the $`p`$wave top squark production reduces the partonic cross section for low $`M_{t\overline{t}}`$, where the parton luminosities are largest.

At the energy of the CERN LHC, production of $`t\overline{t}`$ pairs and of $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ pairs is dominated by $`gg`$ subprocess, and the threshold behaviors in the two cases do not differ as much as they do for the $`q\overline{q}`$ incident channel. In Fig. 2(a), we show the partonic cross sections $`\widehat{\sigma }(\sqrt{\widehat{s}})`$ as functions of the partonic subenergy $`\sqrt{\widehat{s}}`$ for the $`gg`$ channel. In Fig. 2(b), we display the hadronic cross sections for $`ppt\overline{t}X`$ and $`pp\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{\overline{t}}X`$ at proton-proton center-of-mass energy 14 TeV as a function of pair mass. We include the relatively small contributions from the $`q\overline{q}`$ initial state. After convolution with parton densities, the shape of the $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ pair mass distribution is remarkably similar to that of the $`t\overline{t}`$ case.

## III Discussion

Based on shapes and the normalization of cross sections, it is difficult to exclude the possibility that some fraction (on the order of 10%) of top squarks with mass close to 165 GeV is present in the current $`t\overline{t}`$ sample. The invariant mass distribution of the produced objects, $`M_{t\overline{t}}`$, is quite different at the partonic level for the $`q\overline{q}`$ initial state (dominant at the Tevatron), but much less so for the $`gg`$ initial state (dominant at the LHC). However, after one folds with the parton distribution functions, the difference in the $`q\overline{q}`$ channel at the Tevatron is reduced to such an extent that the $`M_{t\overline{t}}`$ distribution is not an effective means to isolate top squarks from top quarks.

Ironically, the good agreement of the absolute rate for $`t\overline{t}`$ production with theoretical expectations  would seem to be the best evidence now for the spin-1/2 assignment in the current Tevatron sample.

A promising technique to isolate a top squark with mass close to $`m_t`$ would be a detailed study of the momentum distribution of the top quark decay products (presumably in the top quark rest frame). One could look for evidence of a chargino resonance in the missing transverse energy and charged lepton momentum, or for unusual energy or angular distributions of the decay products owing to the different decay chains. One could also look for deviations from the expected correlation between angular distributions of decay products and the top spin .

As a concrete example of an analysis of this type, in Fig. 3 we present the distribution in the invariant mass $`X`$ of the bottom quark and charged lepton, with $`X^2=(p_b+p_\mathrm{}^+)^2`$, where the bottom quark and lepton are decay products of either a top quark with $`m_t=175`$ GeV or a top squark $`\stackrel{~}{t}\stackrel{~}{\chi }^+bW^+\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0b\mathrm{}^+\nu _{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0b`$, with $`m_{\stackrel{~}{t}}=165`$ GeV, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^+}=130`$ GeV, $`m_{\stackrel{~}{\chi }^0}=40`$ GeV, and $`m_b=5`$ GeV. The $`X`$ distribution is a measure of the degree of polarization of the $`W`$ boson in top quark decay , and the figure shows that the different dynamics responsible for top squark decay result in a very different distribution, peaked at much lower $`X`$. The areas under the curves are normalized to the inclusive $`t\overline{t}`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}\overline{\stackrel{~}{t}}`$ rates at the Tevatron and LHC, respectively. At the LHC there is relatively more top squark in the sample, and thus the difference is more prominent.

In this simple demonstration potentially important effects are ignored such as cuts to extract the $`t\overline{t}`$ signal from its backgrounds, detector resolution and efficiency, and ambiguities in identifying the correct $`b`$ with the corresponding charged lepton from a single decay. Detailed simulations would be required to determine explicitly how effective this variable would be in extracting a top squark sample from top quark events. Nevertheless, such techniques, combined with the large $`t\overline{t}`$ samples at the Tevatron Run II and LHC, should prove fruitful in ruling out the possibility of a top squark with mass close to the top quark mass, or alternatively, in discovering a top squark hidden in the top sample.

## Acknowledgments

Work in the High Energy Physics Division at Argonne National Laboratory is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Division of High Energy Physics, under Contract W-31-109-ENG-38.


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# Systematic effects in the interpretations of Cluster X-ray Temperature functions

## 1. Introduction

Clusters of galaxies are the largest known virialized gravitational systems in the Universe. According to our working hypothesis of structure formation, the cold dark matter (CDM) model, clusters form via gravitational collapse of high density peaks of primordial density fluctuations. The distribution and evolution of these peaks strongly depend on the CDM model parameters. We use the following parameterization for our CDM models: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, $`h`$ (matter density, baryon density, cosmological constant, all in units of the critical density, all at $`z`$ = 0, and $`h`$ is the Hubble constant in units of $`100\mathrm{Km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$). Semi-analytical methods, like the Press-Schechter approximation, use some version of a spherical collapse model to predict the distribution of collapsed objects and their masses as a function of redshift. Assuming a physical model for the clusters and their intracluster medium, one can translate cluster virial masses to X-ray luminosity, or temperature of the intracluster gas, which can be compared to observations. We use the temperature function of clusters in our study. The most popular method is to assume a power law approximation for the power spectra of CDM models, use the Press-Schechter mass function (PSMF) to predict the abundance, and then derive the virial temperature to get the intracluster gas temperature, or integrate over formation epochs to determine the mass-temperature conversion. This method has the power spectrum normalization and the power law exponent of the mass variance on cluster scales as free parameters and determines matter density, and has no dependence on the Hubble constant. We use COBE normalized spectra of CDM models to derive the mass variance and the Press-Schechter mass function to derive the distribution of cluster masses. This method returns the matter density as a function of the Hubble constant, thus one can not derive either parameter separately. We use four different methods to obtain theoretical temperature functions. We integrate over formation epochs in methods A and B but not in methods C and D. We take into account the collapsed fraction of objects in methods A and C and not in B and D. Method A thus take both effects and method D none of them into account. For each method (A, B, C, and D) we use a grid of CDM model parameters, $`0.2<\mathrm{\Omega }_m<0.9`$ and $`0.2<h<0.9`$, and calculate the temperature functions assuming open and flat CDM cosmologies. We compare these theoretical temperature functions to data and determine the best fit models by minimizing the corresponding $`\chi ^2`$.

## 2. Outline of the methods

The power law approximation for the mass variance assumes a power exponent $`\alpha `$, and derives the mass variance as $`\sigma (M)=\sigma _8(M/M_{15})^\alpha `$, where $`M_{15}=M/(10^{15}M_{})`$, and $`M`$ is the mass we will identify with the virial mass in the PSMF. It is commonly assumed that the power spectrum then can be approximated by a power law with an exponent $`\alpha =(n_{PS}+3)/6`$, but that is true only if the power spectrum could be approximated by one power law in all scales (note the integral in equation 1). That is not true for CDM models, therefore we quote the mass variance power exponents on cluster scale for power law approximations. Instead of the approximation we use COBE normalized power spectra of CDM models (Hu and Sugiyama 1996) and obtain the mass variance from a numerical integral

$$\sigma _{R(M)}^2=(1/2\pi ^2)P(k)W^2(kR)k^2𝑑k,$$
(1)
where $`P(k)`$, $`W(kR)`$, $`R(M)`$, and $`k`$ are the power spectrum, filter function in Fourier space, the radius of filtering, and the co-moving wavenumber. We use the standard PSMF corrected for collapsed fraction $`f_c`$, which gives the fraction of matter in collapsed objects: $`n(z,M)dM=(f_c/f_c^{PS})n_{PS}(z,M)dM`$, where $`f_c^{PS}`$ is the Press-Schechter collapsed fraction (Martel and Shapiro 1999). In order to obtain the temperature function, we assume that clusters form over a period of time and integrate over formation $`n_T(z,M)=_z^{\mathrm{}}F(M,z_f,z)\frac{dM}{dT}(T,z_f,z)𝑑z_f`$, where $`F(M,z_f,z)`$ depends on $`\sigma (M)`$, $`\delta _c(z)`$, and $`n(z_f,M)`$ (Kitayama and Suto 1996). We used the spherical collapse model virial temperature (Eke et al. 1998):

$$M(T)=M_{15}\left[\frac{\beta kT[keV]}{1.38keV(z+1)}\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }(z)}{\mathrm{\Omega }(0)\mathrm{\Delta }_c(z)}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(2)
We use $`\beta =1`$ as suggested by numerical simulations (Eke et al. 1998).

## 3. Results and Conclusions

In Figure 1a we show the resulting best fit temperature functions using the power law approximation of Donahue and Voit (1999) and Blanchard et al. (1999) as we reconstructed them following their method. We used Horner et al. (1999)’s compilation of data taken from Edge et al. (1990) Henry and Arnaud (1991), and Markevitch (1998) (squares, diamonds, and triangles). The solid and dashed dotted lines represent best fit flat model, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.27`$, $`\sigma _8=0.73`$ $`\alpha =0.13`$, of Donahue and Voit (they integrated over cluster formation epoch) and their best fit model, but not integrated over cluster formation epoch. Blanchard et al.’s best fit flat model, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.735`$, $`\sigma _c=0.623`$, $`\alpha =0.18`$, is represented by a long dashed line. The short dashed line represents Blanchard et al.’s best fit temperature function, but integrated over cluster formation epoch. Open model temperature functions (not shown) are very similar to those of the flat models. The difference between temperature functions from methods with and without integration over cluster formation epoch is significant even with existing data. The large difference between density parameters derived by Donahue and Voit, and Blanchard et al. is due to the different normalizations of the $`M(T)`$ relation and not integration over cluster formation, which can cause a change less than 0.1 in the density parameter (cf. next paragraph).

Figure 1b shows temperature functions of the best fit flat CDM model (best fit using method A) with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.39`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.61`$, $`h=0.5`$, and this best fit model, but temperature functions with and without taking the collapsed fraction and/or integrating over cluster formation epochs (our methods B, C and D). The data are the same as in figure 1a. The solid, long dashed, short dashed and dashed dot lines represent temperature functions using our methods A, B, C and D. Open models behave similarly so we do not show them here. The smallest effect is the correction for collapsed fraction of objects which is about the size of the error bars of the data, thus an important effect (compare methods A and B). A larger difference is caused by integration over formation epoch (methods A and C). If one fits models without integrating and/or taking collapsed fraction into account (methods B, C and D), one get matter densities $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.36`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.34`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.31`$ (assuming $`h=0.5`$). Not taking either effects into account causes about 0.1 change in the derived matter density (compare results using methods A and D). As we can see, the temperature function is very sensitive to CDM model parameters if one uses a full CDM treatment, and thus a precise determination of the matter density is possible if the Hubble constant is known. We should keep in mind, however, that the normalization of the $`M(T)`$ relation, for example, causes much larger error in determining $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$. Since this method does not allow us to separate the density parameter from the Hubble constant, the result is a best fit function of the two. We can make use of the results from the power law approximation which gives the best fit density parameter, and check if the corresponding Hubble constant is reasonable using our methods. We find that our best fit CDM models yield the same matter density as the best fit models of Donahue and Voit (1999) and Blanchard et al. (1999) if we use $`h=0.55`$ and $`h=0.35`$. Thus Blanchard et al.’s method is only marginally compatible to ours.

Figure 1b shows that systematic errors from interpretation of the temperature function are larger than the error bars on even the existing data. We conclude that, if the Hubble constant is known, a comparison between the observationally derived cluster temperature function and those derived from a full CDM treatment may yield an accurate determination of the density parameter (with an error less then 0.05), however, this can be done only if we find other ways to derive a correct theoretical model to interpret the data.

## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank N. Aghanim and R. Mushotzky for valuable discussions, and Don Horner for providing us his compilation of the temperature data. We thank N. Aghanim for her hospitality at the Institute of Astronomy of Orsay University.

## REFERENCES

Blanchard, A., et al.1999, astro-ph/9908037

Donahue, M., and Voit, G. M., 1999, preprint, astro-ph/9907333

Edge et al.1990, MNRAS, 245, 559

Eke, V. R., Cole S., Frenk, C. S., and Henry, J. P., 1998, MNRAS, 298, 1145

Horner, D. et al.1999, in prepaparation

Hu, W, and Sugiyama, N, 1996, ApJ, 471, 542

Markevitch, M., 1998, ApJ, 504, 27

Martel, H., and Shapiro, P. R., 1999, astro-ph/9903425

Henry, J. P., and Arnaud, K. A., 1991, ApJ, 372, 410

Voges et al., 1999, A&A, 349, 389


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# Properties of Gamma-Ray Burst Time Profiles Using Pulse Decomposition Analysis

## 1 Introduction

There has been considerable recent progress in the study of gamma-ray bursts. Much of this results from the detection of bursts by BeppoSAX with good locations that have allowed the detection of counterparts at other wavelengths. This has allowed measurements of redshifts that have firmly established that these bursts are at cosmological distances. However, only a few redshifts are known, so there is still much work to be done in determining the mechanisms that produce gamma-ray bursts. Investigation of time profiles and spectra can shed new light on this subject.

The vast majority of gamma-ray bursts that have been observed have been observed *only* by BATSE. This data can be classified into three major types: burst locations with relatively large uncertainties, temporal characteristics, and spectral characteristics. Here, we shall examine temporal characteristics of bursts, along with some spectral characteristics.

The temporal structure of gamma-ray bursts exhibit very diverse morphologies, from single simple spikes to extremely complex structures. So far, the only clear division of bursts based on temporal characteristics that has been found is the bimodal distribution of the $`T_{90}`$ and $`T_{50}`$ intervals, which are measures of burst durations (Kouveliotou et al., 1993; Meegan et al., 1996a). In order to characterize burst time profiles, it is useful to be able to describe them using a small number of parameters.

Many burst time profiles appear to be composed of a series of discrete, often overlapping, pulses, often with a *fast rise, exponential decay* (FRED) shape (Norris et al., 1996). These pulses have durations ranging from a few milliseconds to several seconds. The different pulses might, for example, come from different spatial volumes in or near the burst source. Therefore, it may be useful to decompose burst time profiles in terms of individual pulses, each of which rises from background to a maximum and then decays back to background levels. Here, we have analyzed gamma-ray burst time profiles by representing them in terms of a finite number of pulses, each of which is described by a small number of parameters. The BATSE data used for this purpose is described in Section 2. The basic characteristics of the time profiles based on the above model are described in Section 3 and some of the correlations between these characteristics are described in Section 4. (Further analysis of these and other correlations and their significance are discussed in an accompanying paper, Lee et al. (2000).) Finally, a brief discussion is presented in Section 5.

## 2 The BATSE Time-to-Spill Data

The BATSE Time-to-Spill (TTS) burst data type records the times required to accumulate a fixed number of counts, usually 64, in each of four energy channels (Meegan, 1991). These time intervals give fixed multiples of the reciprocals of the average count rates during the spill intervals. There has been almost no analysis done using the TTS data because it is less convenient to use with standard algorithms than the BATSE Time-Tagged Event (TTE) data or the various forms of binned BATSE data. The TTS data use the limited memory on board the CGRO more efficiently than do the binned data types because at lower count rates, it stores spills less frequently, with each spill having the same constant fractional statistical error. On the other hand, the binned data types always store binned counts at the same intervals, so that at low count rates the binned counts have a large fractional statistical error. The variable time resolution of the TTS data ranges from under 50 ms at low background rates to under 0.1 ms in the peaks of the brightest bursts. In contrast, the finest time resolution available for binned data is 16 ms for the medium energy resolution (MER) data, and then only for the first 33 seconds after the burst trigger. The TTS data can store up to 16,384 spill events (over $`10^6`$ counts) for each energy channel, and this is almost always sufficient to record the complete time profiles of bright, long bursts. This is unlike the TTE data, which are limited to 32,768 counts in all four energy channels combined. For short bursts, the TTE data have finer time resolution than the TTS data, because it records the arrival times of individual counts with 2 $`\mu `$s resolution. Furthermore, the TTE data also contain data from before the burst trigger time. One reason why this is useful is that some of the shortest bursts are nearly over by the time burst trigger conditions have been met, so the TTS and MER data aren’t very useful for these bursts.

Figure 1 shows a portion of the time profile of BATSE trigger number 1577 (GRB 4B 920502B) that contains a spike with duration shorter than 1 ms. The data with the finest time resolution, the time-tagged event (TTE) data, end long before the spike occurs, so the TTS data give the best representation of the spike. The binned data with the finest time resolution, the MER data with 16 ms bins, are unavailable for this burst, as are the PREB and DISCSC data with 64 ms bins.

For a Poisson process, the individual event times in the TTE data and the binned counts in the various binned data types follow the familiar exponential and the Poisson distributions, respectively. The spill times recorded in the TTS data follow the *gamma distribution*, which is the distribution of times needed to accumulate a fixed number of independent (Poisson) events occurring at a given rate. The probability of observing a spill time $`t_s`$ is

$$P(t_s)=\frac{t_s^{N1}R^Ne^{Rt_s}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(N)},$$
(1)
where $`N`$ is the number of events per spill and $`R`$ is the rate of individual events. This probability distribution is closely related to the Poisson distribution, which gives the number of events occurring within fixed time intervals for the same process of independent individual events, such as photon arrivals.

### 2.1 The Pulse Model and the Pulse Fitting Procedure

We now describe the pulse model used to fit GRB time profiles, and the pulse-fitting procedure. The pulse model we use is the phenomological pulse model of Norris et al. (1996) In this model, each pulse is described by five parameters with the functional form

$$I(t)=A\mathrm{exp}\left(\left|\frac{tt_{\text{max}}}{\sigma _{r,d}}\right|^\nu \right),$$
(2)
where $`t_{\text{max}}`$ is the time at which the pulse attains its maximum, $`\sigma _r`$ and $`\sigma _d`$ are the rise and decay times, respectively, $`A`$ is the pulse amplitude, and $`\nu `$ (the “peakedness”) gives the sharpness or smoothness of the pulse at its peak. Pulses can, and frequently do, overlap. Stern et al. (1997) have used the same functional form to fit averaged time profiles (ATPs) of entire bursts.

We have developed an interactive pulse-fitting program that can automatically find initial background level and pulse parameters using a Haar wavelet denoised time profile (Donoho, 1992), and allows the user to add or delete pulses graphically. The program then finds the parameters of the pulses and a background with a constant slope by using a maximum-likelihood fit for the gamma distribution (equation 1) that the TTS spill times follow (Lee et al., 1996, 1998; Lee, 2000).

The data that we use in this paper are the TTS data for all gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE 3B catalog (Meegan et al., 1996b) up to trigger number 2000, covering the period from 1991 April 21 through 1992 October 22, in all channels that are available and show time variation beyond the normal Poisson noise of the background. We fit each channel of each burst separately and obtained 574 fits for 211 bursts, with a total of 2465 pulses. In many cases, the data for a burst showed no activity in a particular energy channel, only the normal background counts, so there were no pulses to fit. This occurred most frequently in energy channel 4. In other cases, the data for a burst contained telemetry gaps or were completely missing in one or more channels, making it impossible to fit those channels.

This procedure is likely to introduce selection biases, which can be quantified through simulation. To determine these biases, we simulated a set of bursts with varying numbers of pulses with distributions of pulse and background parameters based on the observed distributions in actual bursts. We generated independent counts according to the simulated time profiles to create simulated TTS data, which we subjected to the same pulse-fitting procedure used for the actual BATSE data. The detailed results of this simulation are discussed in the Appendix. We will contrast the results from the actual data with those from the simulations where necessary and relevant.

### 2.2 Count Rates and Time Resolution

The time resolution of the TTS data can be determined from the fitted background rates and the amplitudes of the individual pulses (discussed later in Subsection 3.3), at both the background levels and at the peaks of the pulses. Table 1, columns (a) show the percentage of bursts in our fitted sample where the time resolution at background levels and at the peak of the highest amplitude pulse are finer than 64 ms and 16 ms, the time resolutions of the more commonly used DISCSC and MER data, respectively. The background rates are taken at the time of the burst trigger, and ignore the fitted constant slope of the background. The rates at the peaks of the highest amplitude pulses include the background rates at the peak times of the pulses calculated with the background slopes. However, these rates ignore overlapping pulses, so the actual time resolution will be finer since the actual count rates will be higher. Note that even at background levels, the TTS data always have finer time resolution than the DISCSC data, except in energy channel 4 where the DISCSC data have finer time resolution for 32% of the bursts in our sample.

Table 1, columns (b) show the percentage of individual pulses where the TTS data have time resolution finer than 16 ms and 64 ms at the pulse peaks. Again, the count rates include the fitted background rates at the peak times of the pulses but ignore overlapping pulses. For all individual pulses, the TTS data have finer time resolution at their peaks than the DISCSC data.

## 3 General Characteristics of Pulses in Bursts

In this section we describe characteristics of pulses in individual bursts and in the sample as a whole.

### 3.1 Numbers of Pulses

The number of pulses in a fit range from 1 to 43, with a median of 2 pulses per fit in energy channels 1, 2, and 4, and a median of 3 pulses per fit in energy channel 3. (See Figure 2.) The numbers of pulses per fit follows the trend of pulse amplitudes, which we shall see tend to be highest in energy channel 3, followed in order by channels 2, 1, and 4, respectively. This appears to occur because higher amplitude pulses are easier to identify above the background, and is consistent with the simulation results shown in the Appendix.

Norris et al. (1996) have used the pulse model of equation 2 to fit the time profiles of 45 bright, long bursts. They analyzed the BATSE PREB and DISCSC data types, which contain four-channel discriminator data with 64 ms resolution beginning 2 seconds before the burst trigger. For their selected sample of bursts, they fitted an average of 10 pulses per burst, with no time profiles consisting of only a single pulse. This number is considerably higher than the mean number of pulses per fit for our sample of bursts, probably because their sample was selected for high peak flux and long duration, which makes it easier to resolve more pulses.

### 3.2 Matching Pulses Between Energy Channels

To see how attributes of pulses within a burst vary with energy, it is necessary to match pulses in different energy channels. Although burst time profiles generally have similar features in different energy channels, this matching is not straightforward, since the number of pulses fitted to a burst time profile is very often different between energy channels. We have used a simple automatic algorithm for matching pulses between adjacent energy channels. This algorithm begins by taking all pulses from the channel with fewer pulses. It then takes the same number of pulses of highest amplitude from the other channel, and matches them in time order with the pulses from the channel with fewer pulses. For example, the time profiles of BATSE trigger number 1577 were fitted with nine pulses in energy channel 3, and only four pulses in channel 4. This algorithm simply matches all four pulses in channel 4 in time order with the four highest amplitude pulses in channel 3. While this method will not always correctly match individual pulses between energy channels and will result in broad statistical distributions, it should still preserve central tendencies and yield useful statistical information.

### 3.3 Brightness Measures of Pulses: Amplitudes and Count Fluences

The amplitude of a pulse, parameter $`A`$ in equation 2, is the maximum count rate within the pulse, and measures the observed intensity of the pulse, which depends on the absolute intensity of the pulse at the burst source and the distance to the burst source. The amplitudes of the fitted pulses ranged from 40 counts/second to over 500,000 counts/second. (See Table 2 and Figure 3.) Pulses tend to have the highest amplitudes in energy channel 3, followed in order by channels 2, 1, and 4, in agreement with Norris et al. (1996). The central 68% of the pulse amplitude distributions span a range of about one order of magnitude in each of the four energy channels, with a somewhat greater range in channel 3. We will see in the Appendix that the fitting procedure tends to miss pulses with low amplitudes, so that the distributions shown may be strongly affected by selection effects in the fitting procedure.

The amplitude of the highest amplitude pulse in a burst is an approximation to the instantaneous peak flux above background of that burst in that energy channel. The peak flux is often used as an indicator of the distance to the burst source. Since pulses can overlap, the highest pulse amplitude can be less than the actual background-subtracted peak flux. The BATSE burst catalogs give background-subtracted peak fluxes for 64, 256, and 1024 ms time bins in units of photons/cm2/second, for which effects such as the energy acceptances of the detectors and the orientation of the spacecraft and hence the detectors relative to the source have been accounted for and removed. The BATSE burst catalog also lists raw peak count rates that are not background-subtracted or corrected for any of the effects described, averaged over 64, 256, and 1024 ms time bins in the second most brightly illuminated detector for each burst. These peak count rates are primarily useful for comparison with the BATSE event trigger criteria. In some bursts, the highest pulses are considerably narrower than the shortest time bins used to measure peak flux in the BATSE burst catalog. For these bursts, these peak fluxes will be lower than the true peak flux, and the fitted pulse amplitudes are likely to be a better measure of the true peak flux. The distributions of the highest pulse amplitudes are shown in Table 3 and Figure 4. Since BATSE selectively triggers on events with high peak flux, the distributions must be strongly affected by the trigger criteria.

Figure 5 shows the number of pulses in each fit plotted against the amplitudes of all of the pulses comprising each fit. It shows that in fits with more pulses, the minimum pulse amplitude, which can be seen from the left boundary of the distribution, tends to be higher. This could result in part from intrinsic properties of the burst sources, but may also result at least in part from a selection effect: In a complex time profile with many overlapping pulses, low amplitude pulses, which have poor signal-to-noise ratios, will be more difficult to resolve, while in a less complex time profile, they will be easier to resolve. This hypothesis appears to be confirmed by the simulation results shown in the Appendix. Table 4, columns (a) give the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients, commonly denoted as $`r_s`$, for the joint distribution of pulse amplitudes and numbers of pulses in the corresponding bursts shown in Figure 5, as well as the probability that a random data set of the same size with no correlation between the two variables would produce the observed value of $`r_s`$. It shows strong positive correlations between pulse amplitudes and the number of pulses in the fit for all energy channels. These correlations appear to be stronger than those arising in the fits to simulations shown in Table 16, columns (a).

The area under the light curve of a pulse gives the total number of counts contained in the pulse, which is its count fluence. It is given in terms of the pulse parameters and the gamma function by

$$=A_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}I(t)𝑑t=A\frac{\sigma _r+\sigma _d}{\nu }\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{1}{\nu }\right).$$
(3)
The count fluence is a measure of the observed integrated luminosity of the pulse, which depends on the total number of photons emitted by the source within the pulse and the distance to the burst source. We will see in the Appendix that the fitting procedure tends to miss pulses with low count fluences.

Figure 6 shows the number of pulses in each fit versus the count fluences of the individual pulses. It shows that in bursts containing more pulses, the individual pulses tend to contain fewer counts. We shall see in the next section that pulses tend to be narrower in more complex bursts. This result for count fluences implies that the tendency for pulses to be narrower is stronger than the tendency for pulses to have higher amplitudes in more complex bursts. Table 4, columns (b) show that the corresponding negative correlations between pulse count fluences and numbers of pulses per fit are statistically significant in energy channels 1 and 2, but not in channels 3 and 4. The fits to simulations (Figure 17 and Table 16, columns (b)) do not show the same tendency, so this most likely is not caused by selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure.

### 3.4 Pulse Widths and Time Delays

Timescales in gamma-ray bursts are likely to be characteristic of the physical processes that produce them. However, since some, and possibly all, bursts are produced at cosmological distances, all observed timescales will be affected by cosmological time dilation, and won’t represent the physical timescales at the sources.

#### 3.4.1 Pulse Widths

The most obvious timescale that appears in the pulse decomposition of gamma-ray burst time profiles is the pulse width, or duration. We shall measure the duration, or width, of a pulse using its full width at half maximum (FWHM), which is given by

$$T_{\text{FWHM}}=(\sigma _r+\sigma _d)(\mathrm{ln}2)^{\frac{1}{\nu }}.$$
(4)
The distributions of the pulse widths, which are shown in Figure 7 and columns (a) of Table 5, peak near one second in all energy channels, with no sign of the bimodality seen in total burst durations mentioned above. Pulses tend to be narrower (shorter) at higher energies.

The narrowing of pulses in higher energy channels can also be measured from the ratios of pulse widths of matched pulses in adjacent energy channels, as shown in Table 6. We can test the hypothesis that pulses tend to be narrower at higher energies by computing the probability that the observed numbers of pulses width ratios less than 1 will occur by chance if pulse width ratios less than 1 and greater than 1 are equally probable. This probability can be computed from the binomial distribution, and is shown in the last column of Table 6. The table shows less narrowing than a simple comparison of median pulse widths from Table 5 would suggest, though it also shows that the hypothesis that pulses *do not* become narrower at higher energies is strongly excluded between channels 1 and 2 and between channels 2 and 3. Qualitatively similar kinds of trends have been shown to be present in individual pulses (Norris et al., 1996) and composite pulse shapes of many bursts (Link et al., 1993; Fenimore & Bloom, 1995). There are, however, some quantitative differences. For example, we find that there seems to be less narrowing at higher energies; the pulse width ratios tend to be closer to 1 between energy channels 3 and 4 than for the lower energy channels (although the statistics are poorer, as with anything involving channel 4), which is the opposite of the tendency found by Norris et al. (1996). We can use the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to determine if the distributions of pulse width ratios are the same between adjacent energy channels. These results are shown in the last column of Table 6. This test shows significant differences in the distribution of pulse widths of matched pulses between adjacent energy channels.

The fact that pulse widths decrease monotonically with energy, and the signal-to-noise ratios of the different energy channels increase in order of the energy channels 3, 2, 1, 4, imply that the narrowing is caused by the burst production mechanism itself.

#### 3.4.2 Pulse Widths and Numbers of Pulses

Figure 8 and Table 4, columns (c) show the relation between the number of pulses per burst and the widths of the pulses. These show that pulses tend to be narrower in bursts with more pulses. This may be an intrinsic property of GRBs, or it may be a selection effect arising because narrower pulses have less overlap with adjacent pulses, hence they are easier to resolve, so more pulses tend to be identified in bursts with narrower pulses. This may also be a side effect of correlations between other burst and pulse characteristics with the number of pulses per burst and the pulse widths. Table 4 shows strong negative correlations between the numbers of pulses per fit and the pulse widths. The fits to simulations shown in Figure 19 and Table 16, columns (c) do not have the same tendency. This suggests that the negative correlation between the number of pulses in each fit and the pulse widths seen in the fits to actual bursts do not result from selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure, but are intrinsic to the burst production mechanism, or may arise from other effects.

#### 3.4.3 Time Delays Between Energy Channels

Table 7, columns (a) show the differences, or time delays, between the peak times $`t_{\text{max}}`$ of all pulses matched between adjacent energy channels. It shows a significant tendency for individual pulses to peak earlier at higher energies. This has been previously observed, and described as a hard-to-soft spectral evolution of the individual pulses (Norris et al., 1986, 1996). The time delays found here are greater than those found by Norris et al. (1996), who found an average pulse peak time delay between adjacent energy channels of $`20`$ ms. Comparing the peak times of the highest amplitude pulses in each fit between adjacent energy channels also shows a significant tendency for bursts to peak earlier at higher energies. (See Table 7, columns (b).) The time delays between energy channels observed here and elsewhere are likely to result from intrinsic properties of the burst sources.

### 3.5 Pulse Shapes: Asymmetries and the Peakedness $`\nu `$

Although the pulse model uses separate rise and decay times as its basic parameters, it is often more natural to consider the widths and asymmetries of pulses, which give equivalent information to the rise and decay times. The ratios of pulse rise times to decay times $`\sigma _r/\sigma _d`$ are a convenient way to measure the asymmetry of pulses, and depends only on the shapes of pulses. The asymmetry ratios cover a very wide range of values, but there is a clear tendency for pulses to have slightly shorter rise times than decay times. (See Figure 9.)

Table 8 shows that the hypothesis that pulses are symmetric is strongly excluded in energy channels 2 and 3. The binomial probability isn’t computed for all pulses in all energy channels combined, because pulses cannot be considered to be independent between energy channels. We also see that the degree of the asymmetry isn’t significantly different for the different energy channels. Norris et al. (1996) found far greater asymmetry, with average values of $`\sigma _d/\sigma _r`$ (the inverse of the ratio used here) ranging from 2 to 3 for their selected sample of bursts, and with about 90% of pulses having shorter rise times than decay times.

The relation of the peakedness parameter $`\nu `$ to physical characteristics of gamma-ray burst sources is far less clear than for other pulse attributes. Nevertheless, it does give information that can be used to compare the shapes of different pulses. The peakedness $`\nu `$ has a median value near 1.2 in all energy channels, so that pulses tend to have shapes between an exponential, for which $`\nu =1`$, and a Gaussian, for which $`\nu =2`$. (See Figure 10 and columns (b) of Table 5.) Stern et al. (1997) use the functional form of equation 2 to fit averaged time profiles of many bursts rather than individual constituent pulses, and find that $`\nu 1/3`$ for the *averaged time profiles*.

## 4 Correlations Between Pulse Characteristics

Correlations between different characteristics of pulses, or the lack thereof, may reveal much about gamma-ray bursts that the distributions of the individual characteristics cannot. Some correlations may arise from intrinsic properties of the burst sources, while others may result from the differing distances to the sources. The first kind of correlation may be present among pulses of individual bursts or among the whole population of bursts, while the second kind will not be present among pulses of individual bursts. In order to distinguish between these two kinds of effects, it is useful to examine correlations of pulse characteristics both between different bursts, and between pulses within individual bursts.

It is simplest to find correlations between characteristics of all pulses, but such correlations would combine both kinds of effects, and the statistics would be weighted in favor of bursts containing more pulses. It is also possible to select a single pulse from each burst, and find correlations between the characteristics of these pulses from burst to burst in order to look for effects arising from the distances to burst sources. However, if the correlations are taken using the single highest amplitude or highest fluence pulse from each burst, then they could still be affected by correlations of pulse characteristics within individual bursts. For example, consider a situation where amplitudes and durations of pulses within individual bursts are correlated, and where pulse amplitudes and durations follow a common distribution for all bursts. In such a case, if we select the single highest amplitude pulse from each burst, we would find a spurious correlation between highest pulse amplitude and duration between different bursts.

Correlation results which compare and contrast the cosmological and intrinsic effects will be discussed in greater detail in the accompanying paper Lee et al. (2000). Here, we describe our method and some other correlation results.

One way to find correlations of pulse characteristics within individual bursts is to calculate a correlation coefficient for each burst and examine the distribution of the degrees of correlation, for example to see if the correlation coefficients were positive for a large majority of bursts. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient is used for this purpose here. When using the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient, the coefficients for the individual bursts are often not statistically significant because the number of pulses in each burst is not large, even though the coefficents for the different bursts may be mostly positive or mostly negative. We can test the hypothesis that there is no correlation because in the absence of any correlation, we would expect an equal number of bursts with positive correlations as with negative correlations, so the probability that the observed numbers of bursts with positive and negative correlations could occur by chance if there was no correlation is given by the binomial distribution. This is the method used here. This method ignores the strengths of the individual correlations, so it is more sensitive to a weak correlation that affects large numbers of bursts than it is to a strong correlation that affects only a small number of bursts.

### 4.1 Spectral Characteristics

The data that we are using only has very limited spectral information, only four energy channels. We can investigate spectral characteristics by using the *hardness ratios* of individual pulses. The hardness ratio of a pulse between two specified energy channels is the ratio of the fluxes or fluences of the pulse between the two energy channels. Although the actual numerical values of the hardness ratios depend on the somewhat arbitrary boundaries of the energy channels, the values can be compared between different pulses, and between different bursts.

There have been several claims of correlation between peak or average hardness ratios and durations among bursts, with shorter bursts being harder, and there has been some analysis of the cosmological significance of this. Here we investigate similar correlations for bursts, and for pulses in individual bursts.

#### 4.1.1 Pulse Widths

Table 9, columns (a) show the correlations between the pulse amplitude hardness ratios and the pulse widths for the highest amplitude pulse in each burst. The pulse widths used are arithmetic means of the widths in the two adjacent energy channels that the hardness ratios are taken between, *e.g.* hardness ratios between channels 2 and 3 are compared with pulse widths averaged over channels 2 and 3. In all pairs of adjacent energy channels, the highest amplitude pulse has a slight tendency to be narrower when the burst is harder, as measured using peak flux, but this does not appear to be statistically significant, except possibly between channels 3 and 4. This may be a signature of weak redshift effects; whereby the higher the redshift, the softer the spectrum and the longer the duration.

Table 10, columns (a) shows the correlations between pulse amplitude hardness ratios and pulse widths within bursts. As evident, there is almost equal probability for positive and negative correlations. We conclude, therefore, that there is no significant tendency for longer or shorter duration pulses to have harder or softer spectra, measured using peak flux.

#### 4.1.2 Intervals Between Pulses

Table 9, columns (b) show the correlations between the pulse amplitude hardness ratios and the intervals between the two highest amplitude pulses in each fit. The time intervals used are also averaged over the two adjacent energy channels. In all pairs of adjacent energy channels, the two highest amplitude pulses have a slight tendency to be closer together when the burst is harder (as expected from cosmological redshift effects), as measured using peak flux, but this is not statistically significant, except possibly between channels 1 and 2.

#### 4.1.3 Pulse Amplitudes

Table 9, columns (c) show the correlations between the pulse amplitude hardness ratio and the pulse amplitudes for the highest amplitude pulse in each burst. If the peak luminosity of the highest amplitude pulse is a standard candle or has a narrow distribution, the effects of cosmological redshift would introduce a correlation between hardness ratio and amplitude. In all pairs of adjacent energy channels, the highest amplitude pulse has a slight tendency to be stronger when the burst is harder, as measured using peak flux, but this is not statistically significant (except possibly between channels 2 and 3,) indicating that the distribution of the above-mentioned luminosity is broad.

Table 10, columns (b) shows the correlations between pulse amplitude hardness ratios and pulse amplitudes within bursts. The pulse amplitudes are summed over the two adjacent energy channels that the hardness ratios are taken between. There appears to be no statistically significant tendency for higher amplitude pulses to have harder or softer spectra, although slightly more bursts show a positive correlation (higher amplitude pulses are harder) than a negative correlation (higher amplitude pulses are softer.) This points to a weak or negligible intrinsic correlation between these quantities.

#### 4.1.4 Count Fluence Hardness Ratios

In what follows, we carry out the same tests using the hardness ratio measured by count fluence instead of amplitude, for bursts and pulses within bursts.

Table 11, columns (a) shows the correlations between the total burst count fluence hardness ratios and the pulse widths for the highest amplitude pulses of the bursts. A positive correlation (harder bursts having shorter durations) would be expected if pulse total energy had a narrow intrinsic distribution. There is no consistent or statistically significant tendency for the highest amplitude pulse in each burst to be wider or narrower when the burst is harder or softer, as measured using fluence.

Table 12, columns (a) show the correlations between pulse count fluence hardness ratios and pulse widths within bursts. In channels 1 and 2, more bursts show negative correlations between the two quantities, *i.e.* longer duration pulses tend to have softer spectra, as measured using count fluence, and this effect, which may be statistically significant, indicates the presence of an intrinsic correlation. There are no statistically significant effects between channels 2 and 3 or between channels 3 and 4.

Table 11, columns (b) shows the correlations between the total burst count fluence hardness ratios and the intervals between the two highest amplitude pulse in each fit. In all pairs of adjacent energy channels, the two highest amplitude pulses have a slight tendency to be closer together when the burst is harder (as expected from cosmological effects,) but this is not statistically significant.

Table 11, columns (c) shows the correlations between the total burst count fluence hardness ratios and the total burst count fluence in each fit. There is no consistent or statistically significant tendency for harder or softer bursts to contain fewer or more counts.

Table 12, columns (b) shows the correlations between pulse count fluence hardness ratios and pulse count fluences within bursts. The pulse count fluences are summed over the two adjacent energy channels that the hardness ratios are taken between. In channels 1 and 2, more bursts show negative correlations, *i.e.* higher fluence pulses tend to have softer spectra, but again, this intrinsic effect appears weak, and there is no significant effect in the other pairs of energy channels.

*In summary, there seems to be little intrinsic correlation between the spectra, as measured by hardness ratio, and other pulse characteristics between bursts and among pulses. There may be weak (statistically not very significant) evidence for trends expected from cosmological redshift effects.*

### 4.2 Time Evolution of Pulse Characteristics Within Bursts

One class of correlations between pulse characteristics within bursts are those between the pulse peak time and other pulse characteristics. These indicate whether certain pulse characteristics tend to evolve in a particular way during the course of a burst. Again, we have used the method described in the previous section, calculating the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients for the individual bursts, and testing the observed numbers of bursts with positive and negative correlations using the binomial distribution.

#### 4.2.1 Pulse Asymmetry Ratios

Table 13, columns (a) show the number and fraction of bursts (in each channel) where there is a negative correlation between the pulse asymmetry ratio $`\sigma _r/\sigma _d`$ and peak time, *i.e.*, the pulse asymmetry decreases with time. Fits for which the calculated Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient was 0, indicating no correlation, were counted as half for decreasing and half for increasing in order to calculate, using the binomial distribution, the probability of this occurring randomly if pulse amplitudes within bursts are equally likely to increase as to decrease with time. The probability was not calculated for all energy channels combined, because fits to the same burst in different energy channels cannot be considered independent, so the binomial distribution cannot be used.

Pulse asymmetry ratios more often decrease than increase with time during bursts, except in energy channel 4, which has the fewest pulses. This effect appears to be statistically significant in channel 3, and possibly channels 1 and 2. The fits to simulations (See Table 17) show no tendency for pulse asymmetries to increase or decrease within bursts. This indicates that the observed tendency for pulse asymmetry ratios to decrease with time within actual bursts does not arise from selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure, so that any tendency would be intrinsic to gamma-ray bursts.

#### 4.2.2 Pulse Rise and Decay Times and Pulse Widths

When we examine the evolution of the rise and decay times separately, instead of their ratios, and the evolution of the pulse widths, we find that there is a nearly equal and opposite trend of decreasing rise times $`\sigma _r`$ and increasing decay times $`\sigma _d`$ as the burst progresses. This gives rise to the evolution of pulse asymmetry ratios described above, although the statistical significance of the evolution of rise times and decay time are weaker than for the pulse asymmetry ratios. The decrease in rise times is possibly a slightly stronger effect than the increase in decay times. However, the combined effect of these two trends is that there appears to be no statistically significant evolution of pulse widths. (See Table 13, columns (b).) This is in agreement with the results of Ramirez-Ruiz & Fenimore (1999b, a), who found no evidence that pulse widths increase or decrease with time when fitting a power-law time dependence, using a small sample of complex bursts selected from the bright, long bursts fitted by Norris et al. (1996).

#### 4.2.3 Spectra

It has been previously reported that bursts tend to show a hard-to-soft spectral evolution, which we can test by seeing how the hardness ratios of individual pulses vary with time. Table 14, columns (a) show that the pulse amplitude hardness ratios have a slight tendency to decrease with time during bursts between all three pairs of adjacent energy channels. However, with the numbers of available bursts that are composed of multiple pulses in adjacent energy channels, this tendency is statistically insignificant.

#### 4.2.4 Pulse Count Fluences

When we consider the time evolution of the pulse count fluence hardness ratios within bursts, we find no tendency for the hardness ratio of energy channel 2 to channel 1 to increase or decrease, a possibly significant tendency for the hardness ratio of energy channel 3 to 2 to decrease with time, and a statistically insignificant tendency for the hardness ratio of channel 4 to 3 to increase with time. (See Table 14, columns (b).)

#### 4.2.5 Other Pulse Characteristics

We have conducted similar tests for other pulse characteristics and found that none show any tendencies to increase or decrease with time within bursts that are clearly statistically significant (Lee, 2000). These pulse characteristics are the pulse amplitude, the peakedness parameter $`\nu `$, and the pulse count fluence; *e.g.*, we find no tendency for later pulses within a burst to be stronger or weaker, than earlier pulses.

*In summary, we find no significant correlations between the peak times of pulses in bursts and any other pulse characteristics except possibly the pulse asymmetry ratio, so that the pulses appear to result from random and independent emission episodes.*

## 5 Discussion

Decomposing burst time profiles into a superposition of discrete pulses gives a compact representation that appears to contain their important features, so this seems to be a useful approach for analyzing their characteristics. Our pulse decomposition analysis confirms a number of previously reported properties of gamma-ray burst time profiles using a larger sample of bursts with generally finer time resolution than in prior studies. These properties include tendencies for the individual pulses comprising bursts to have shorter rise times than decay times; for the pulses to have shorter durations at higher energies; and for the pulses to peak earlier at higher energies, which is sometimes described as a hard-to-soft spectral evolution of individual pulses.

Pulse rise times tend to decrease during the course of a burst, while pulse decay times tend to increase. When examining pulse widths, or durations, these two effects nearly balance each other; the apparent tendency for pulse widths to decrease during the course of a burst appears to be statistically insignificant. The ratios of pulse rise times to decay times tend to decrease during the course of a burst. The evolution of pulse asymmetry ratios does not arise from selection effects in the pulse-fitting procedure, so it is most likely intrinsic to the bursters.

No other pulse characteristics show any time evolution within bursts, although it is possible that there is non-monotonic evolution; for example, a pulse characteristic may tend to be greater at the beginning and end of a burst and smaller in the middle, and the tests used here wouldn’t be sensitive to this. In particular, it doesn’t appear that either pulse amplitudes or pulse count fluences have any tendency to increase or decrease during the course of a burst. Also, later pulses in a burst don’t tend to be spectrally harder or softer than earlier pulses, although there is spectral softening *within* most pulses. The spectra of pulses within a burst also don’t appear to be harder or softer for stronger or weaker pulses, or for longer or shorter duration pulses.

One may therefore conclude that the pulses in a burst arise from random and independent emission episodes such as those expected in the internal episodic shock model rather than the external shock models where the presence of distinguishable pulses must be attributed to inhomogeneities in the interaction of the blast wave shock and the clumpy interstellar medium.

When examining similar correlations between the attributes of some characteristic pulses from burst to burst, we find some weak and tantalizing evidence which may be due to cosmological redshift effects. In the accompanying paper Lee et al. (2000) we describe the correlation studies which can distinguish between trends due to cosmological redshifts and intrinsic trends.

We thank Jeffrey Scargle and Jay Norris for many useful discussions. This work was supported in part by Department of Energy contract DE–AC03–76SF00515.

## Appendix A Appendix: Testing for Selection Effects

There are a number of ways in which the pulse-fitting procedure may introduce selection effects into correlations between pulse characteristics. One is that the errors in the different fitted pulse parameters may be correlated. Another is that the pulse-fitting procedure may miss some pulses by not identifying them above the background noise. Still another cause of selection effects is that overlapping pulses may be identified as a single broader pulse.

In order to determine the degree of importance of these selection effects, we have generated a sample of artificial burst time profiles using the pulse model with randomly generated but known pulse parameters, fitted the simulated bursts using the same procedure used for actual burst data, and compared the simulated and fitted pulse characteristics (Lee, 2000).

### A.1 Numbers of Bursts and Pulses

A total of 286 bursts were generated, with only one energy channel for each burst. For many of these, the limit of $`2^{20}`$ counts was reached before the 240 second limit, which almost never occurred in the actual BATSE TTS data. These simulated bursts contained a total of 2671 pulses that had peak times before the limits of $`2^{20}`$ counts and 240 seconds, while the fits to the simulated bursts contained a total of only 1029 pulses. Of these, 223 of the simulated bursts and 198 of the fits to the simulations contained more than one pulse. (See Figure 11 and Table 15.) Note that in the fits to actual BATSE data, the largest number of fits containing more than one pulse was 116 for energy channel 3, so that the simulated data set is larger. Figure 12 shows the number of pulses fitted versus the number of pulses originally generated for each simulated bursts. It shows that the greatest differences between the the fitted and the simulated numbers of pulses tend to occur in the most complex bursts. Figure 13 compares the numbers of pulses per fit between the simulations and the fits to simulations. Most (54%) of the fits to simulated bursts contain fewer pulses than the initial simulations, and for nearly all of the remaining simulated bursts, the number of pulses are the same for the initial simulations and the fits to simulations. The fits to simulations have a mean of 15 fewer pulses than the initial simulations, and a median of 1 fewer pulse. The fits to simulations have a geometric mean of 0.63 times as many pulses as the initial simulations, and a mean of 0.80 times as many pulses.

### A.2 Brightness Measures of Simulated Pulses

Figure 14 shows the distribution of pulse amplitudes in the original simulations and in the fits to simulations. It shows that the fitting procedure has a strong tendency to miss low amplitude pulses. However, if we compare this with Figure 3, we see that in the fits to actual BATSE bursts, the fitting procedure found pulses with considerably lower amplitudes than it found in the fits to simulated bursts.

Figure 15 shows the number of pulses in each burst plotted against the amplitudes of all of the pulses comprising each fit. In the simulations, there are no correlations between pulse amplitudes and the number of pulses in the time profile, because the pulse amplitudes were generated independently of the number of pulses in each burst. In the fits to the simulations, pulse amplitudes tend to be higher in bursts containing more pulses. This must result from the selection effect discussed in Section 3.3; it is easier to identify more pulses when they are stronger. Table 16, columns (a) shows that even though there is no correlation between pulse amplitudes and the number of pulses for the initial simulated data, the fitting procedure introduces a strong positive correlation between these quantities; the tendency to miss low amplitude pulses is greater in more complex bursts.

Figure 16 shows the distribution of pulse count fluences in the original simulations and in the fits to simulations. It shows that the fitting procedure has a strong tendency to miss pulses with low count fluences, similar to what we have seen for low amplitude pulses.

Figure 17 and Table 16, columns (b) compare the number of pulses in each time profile with the count fluences of the individual pulses. They show no tendency for pulses to contain fewer or more counts in bursts with more pulses, in either the initial simulations (by design) or in the fits to simulations. Unlike pulse amplitudes, the tendency to miss low count fluence pulses appears to be independent of burst complexity. This differs from the results seen in the fits to actual bursts, where bursts containing more pulses tended to have pulses with lower count fluences. (See Figure 6 and Table 4, columns (b).) This may explain why the $`2^{20}`$ count limit for the TTS data was frequently reached before the 240 second time limit in the simulated bursts, but rarely in the actual bursts; the total count fluence increases linearly with the number of pulses in the simulated bursts, but less rapidly in the actual BATSE bursts.

### A.3 Pulse Widths

Figure 18 shows the distribution of pulse widths in the original simulations and in the fits to simulations. The pulses in the fits to simulations tend to be slightly longer in duration than in the original simulations, but applying the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to the two distributions show that they are not significantly different; the probability that they are the same distribution is 0.39. This agrees with what we have seen in Figures 14 and 16, that the selection effects of the fitting procedure for pulse amplitudes and for pulse count fluences are similar.

Figure 19 and Table 16, columns (c) compare the number of pulses in each time profile with the widths of the individual pulses. They show no tendency for pulses to be wider or narrower in bursts with more pulses, in either the simulations or the fits to the simulations.

### A.4 Time Evolution of Pulse Characteristics Within Bursts

In the fits to actual BATSE data, it was found that pulse asymmetry ratios tended to decrease over the course of a burst. (See Table 13.) Table 17 shows the correlations between pulse asymmetry ratio and peak times within bursts for the simulations and the fits to simulations. It shows no tendency for positive or negative correlations in either the simulations or the fits to simulations.


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# The Effelsberg Search for Pulsars in the Galactic Centre

## Acknowledgments.

We thank the receiver group of the MPIfR for building the superb 6cm-receiver and the corresponding filterbanks. The digital-group, in particular Thomas Kugelmeier, made significant contributions in the development of the new backend POESY.