GALACTIC ARM MODELS OF GAMMA-RAY BURST SOURCES

Using the BATSE observations, evidence was presented recently that at least some of the gamma-ray burst sources could be in our Galactic spi ral arms. Other analyses have disagreed with this conclusion, leading to an active debate as to whether this can be true. Taking a different approach, a large range of possible spiral arm spatial distributions for the gamma-ray burst sources is investigated here, and it is shown that none of these are able to simultaneously fit the current BATSE [V /V(max)], [cos theta], and [sin2 b] observations if all the sources ar e in the spiral arms. If claims continue to be made that the burst sou rces are in the Galactic spiral arms, it will be necessary to produce an acceptable spatial distribution for the sources.