Improved Limits on Gamma-Ray Burst Repetition from BATSE

We tighten previous upper limits on gamma ray burst repetition by analyzingthe angular power spectrum of the BATSE 3B catalog of 1122 bursts. At 95%confidence, we find that no more than 2% of all observed bursts can be labeledas repeaters, even if no sources are observed to repeat more than once. If afraction f of all observed bursts can be labeled as repeaters that are observedto burst v times each, then all models with (v-1)f>0.05 are ruled out at 99%confidence, as compared to the best previous 99% limit (v-1)f>0.27. At 95%confidence, our new limit is (v-1)f>0.02. Thus even a cluster of 6 events froma single source would have caused excess power above that present in the 3Bcatalog. We conclude that the current BATSE data are consistent with norepetition of classical gamma ray bursts, and that any repeater model isseverely constrained by the near perfect isotropy of their angulardistribution.