New Evidence for the Cosmological Origin of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We find that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) at the 3B catalog are correlated (at 95% confidence level) with Abell clusters. This is the first known correlation of GRBs with any other astronomical population. It confirms the cosmological origin of GRBs. For a subsample of GRBs with accurate positions (δ < 2 3), we compare the rich cluster autocorrelation and the cross-correlation of this subsample with the rich clusters. The amplitude ratio of the comparison suggests that ~26% ± 15% of the members of this subsample are located within 600 h -1 Mpc ( z = 0.2). For an Ω = 1 cosmology with no source evolution, this result implies maximum redshift for the accurate position subsample of z max- a = 0.36 −0.07 +0.27 , and z max = 0.7 −0.07 +0.93 for the entire GRBs population.