Searching for QPOs in BATSE Short Gamma-ray Bursts Based on Narrowband and Broadband Features

Abstract

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), especially short GRBs, are often considered potential candidates for exhibiting kilohertz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) due to their origin from binary mergers. It has already been discovered that two bursts exhibit QPOs. While systematic searches for QPOs in GRBs typically concentrate on the kilohertz range, there has been no comprehensive exploration in the hundred-hertz range. In this study, we systematically conducted QPO searches on all BATSE short burst data within the 0-1000 Hz range. Using nested significance tests, we observed that the reference distributions for different GRBs are quite similar. This observation prompted us to analyze the data by selectively focusing on those with larger statistical values, obviating the need to iterate through all the data and significantly reducing computational workload. Ultimately, our findings did not reveal any compelling evidence for QPOs, which may suggest that the GRB jet has lost the early merging memory.