ON THE CORRELATION OF COSMIC GAMMA-RAY BURSTS WITH RICH CLUSTERS OF GALAXIES

The localizations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) from WATCH/GRANAT, WATCH/ EURECA, and the Interplanetary Network are used to test the hypothesis that GRBs are correlated with clusters of galaxies. We found no corre lation between the positions of the GRBs and the clusters. At the 95% confidence level, no more than 12-14% of the GRBs could originate in n earby (at z less than or similar to 0.1-0.15) clusters of galaxies, wh ich is comparable to the fraction of luminous matter of the Universe i n them. Our upper limit on the correlation of the GRBs and the cluster s is considerably lower than the correlation found in the BATSE data ( Kolatt and Piran 1996; Marani et al. 1997).