GAMMA-RAY BURSTERS IN THE GALACTIC DISK

We use the recently published BATSE Burst Catalog to perform a joint analysis of the burst intensities and source positions. This study suggests the existence of two, spatially distinct, burster populations. The bright bursts detected by BATSE are confined in a galactic disk while weaker events seem to be isotropically distributed. Pre-BATSE burst detectors recorded most of the bright bursts in the Galaxy but were not sensitive enough to detect the bulk of the weak burst population which constitute about 80% of the BATSE sample. Some consequences of these observations are discussed.