Hard x ray (soft gamma ray) bursts and the 1979 March 5 transient
A series of transients from the galactic bulge direction was observed to have energies intermediate between the x-ray burst and the gamma-ray burst domain. The events are distinct from the 'classical' gamma-ray bursts both in their repeating nature and in their characteristic energy; they are also very brief in duration. This brings to possibly four the historic total number of observed transient series of this type, including the 1979 March 5 event and its sequels, from the direction of N49 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and Mazets' B1900+14 series and Babushkina's decade-old observation, both from the galactic disk. It is suggested that these repeaters, unlike the classical bursts with an isotropically distributed source pattern, have sources specifically in high-density galactic and the LMC regions. The evident similarity to the source distributions of x-ray binaries, infrared objects, and visible stars is discussed. The relative intensities and size spectra, the relationship to the anomalous 1979 March 5 event, and other considerations are outlined.