Abstract
We explore the hypothesis, similar to one recently suggested by Bloom and
colleagues, that some nearby supernovae are associated with smooth,
single-pulse gamma-ray bursts, possibly having no emission above ~ 300 keV. We
examine BATSE bursts with durations longer than 2 s, fitting those which can be
visually characterized as single-pulse events with a lognormal pulse model. The
fraction of events that can be reliably ascertained to be temporally and
spectrally similar to the exemplar, GRB 980425 - possibly associated with SN
1998bw - is 4/1573 or 0.25%. This fraction could be as high as 8/1573 (0.5%) if
the dimmest bursts are included. Approximately 2% of bursts are morphologically
similar to GRB 980425 but have emission above ~ 300 keV. A search of supernova
catalogs containing 630 detections during BATSE's lifetime reveals only one
burst (GRB 980425) within a 3-month time window and within the total 3-sigma
BATSE error radius that could be associated with a type Ib/c supernova. There
is no tendency for any subset of single-pulse GRBs to fall near the
Supergalactic Plane, whereas SNe of type Ib/c do show this tendency. Economy of
hypotheses leads us to conclude that nearby supernovae generally are not
related to smooth, single-pulse gamma-ray bursts.