We tighten previous upper limits on gamma-ray burst repetition by analyzing the angular power spectrum of the BATSE 3B catalog of 1122 bursts. At 95% confidence, we find that no more than 2% of all observed bursts can be labeled as repeaters, even if no sources are observed to repeat more than once. If a fraction f of all observed bursts can be labeled as repeaters that are observed to burst ν times each, then all models with (ν - 1)f >= 0.05 are ruled out at 99% confidence, as compared to the best previous 99% limit (ν - 1)f >= 0.27. At 95% confidence, our new limit is (ν - 1)f >= 0.02. Thus, even a cluster of six events from a single source would have caused excess power above that present in the 3B catalog. We conclude that the current BATSE data are consistent with no repetition of classical gamma-ray bursts and that any repeater model is severely constrained by the near-perfect isotropy of their angular distribution.
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Tegmark et al. (1996) studied this question.