THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE COMPTON (GRO) OBSERVATIONS FOR COSMOLOGICAL GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

The BATSE observations (Fishman et al.; Meegan et al.) have shown that the angular distribution of gamma-ray sources in the sky is isotropic and that [V/V(max)] = 0.35. We show that these observations are consistent with a cosmological distribution of sources. In fact the observed distribution of V/V(max) values is the one toward which a cosmological distribution converges. If there is even a weak cosmological time dependence of the event rate, then the bursts originate at modest z values (z(max) almost-equal-to 1). For flat cosmological models, this requires 10(50) ergs or less. The energy and the observed event rate are in full agreement with the binary neutron star merger model.