Are Gamma-Ray Bursts Signals of Supermassive Black Hole Formation?

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The formation of supermassive black holes through the gravitational collapse of supermassive objects (M 10⁴ M) has been proposed as a source of cosmological gamma-ray bursts. The major advantage of this model is that such collapses are far more energetic than stellar-remnant mergers. The major drawback of this idea is the severe baryon loading problem in one-dimensional models. We can show that the observed log N - log P (number vs. peak flux) distribution for gamma-ray bursts in the BATSE database is not inconsistent with an identification of supermassive object collapse as the origin of the gamma-ray bursts. This conclusion is valid for a range of plausible cosmological and gamma-ray burst spectral parameters.