A search for periodic activity in multi-peaked long gamma-ray bursts
Journal
Date Issued
2025
Author(s)
Guidorzi, C.
•
•
Maccary, R.
•
•
Bazzanini, L.
•
Bulla. M.
•
Ferro, L.
•
Frontera, F.
•
Maistrello, M.
•
Tan, W.-J.
•
Tsvetkova, A.
•
Xiong, S. L.
•
Zhang, S. N.
Abstract
A sizeable fraction of gamma-ray burst (GRB) light curves (LCs) features a
sequence of peaks, which holds information on the unknown way energy is
dissipated into gamma-rays over time. Traditional searches for periodic signals
in GRB LCs turned out to be inconclusive, partly because they are challenging
as a consequence of the short-lived, coloured-noise, and non-stationary nature
of the LCs themselves. Yet, recent claims have revived the issue. We searched
for periodic components in GRB LCs through a new approach to GRBs, that avoids
most of the issues faced by traditional techniques. We identified peaks through
a well tested algorithm and selected GRBs with at least 10 peaks out of 5 GRB
catalogues (Swift/BAT, CGRO/BATSE, Fermi/GBM, Insight-HXMT, BeppoSAX/GRBM).
Each GRB was simply treated as a discrete point process, whose realisation
coincides with the sequence of peak times. We searched for possible periodic
recurrences based on the multinomial distribution, after accounting for the
clustering of peaks due to the non-stationarity of the GRB signals. The best
candidate has a p-value of 3e-4 that there is no periodic recurrence. However,
accounting for the multiple trials of 555 searched GRBs, its statistical
significance is demoted to 17%. The overall distribution of the p-values
obtained for all GRBs is compatible with a uniform distribution in [0,1]. We
found no robust evidence for multi-peaked GRBs with periodic recurrences. We
can exclude that a sizeable fraction (>~ 0.75) of peaks of each GRB with at
least 10 peaks are periodic. While our result does not necessarily clash with
claimed periodicities based on Fourier techniques, it constrains the putative
recurrent behaviour, which would not manifest itself through the sequence of
peaks, but, evidently, in a more elusive way.
Volume
697
Issue
A228
Issn Identifier
0004-6361
Ads BibCode
2025A&A...697A.228G
Rights
open.access
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