Gamma-Ray Bursts and Topology of the Universe

Abstract

In this letter we propose a physical explanation for recently reported correlations between pairs of close and antipodal gamma-ray bursts from publicly available BATSE catalogue. Our model is based on the cosmological scenario in which bursters are located at cosmological distances of order of 0.5--2~Gpc. Observed distribution of gamma-ray bursts strongly suports this assumption. If so gamma-ray bursts may provide a very good probe for investigating the topological structure of the Universe. We notice that correlation between antipodal events may in fact indicate that we live in the so called Ellis' small universe which has Friedman-Roberston-Walker metric structure and nontrivial topology.