Dear Dr. Dalgarno,
I have recently seen the very interesting paper
by D.A.Frail et al. on
Beaming in Gamma-ray bursts: evidence for
a standard energy reservoir,
and have rememberd that I knew this suggestion
already. In fact, I found the paper by K.A.Postnov et al. on
GRBs as standard energy explosions
which was published in Astr. Rep. 45, 236, 2001,
the paper being submitted on Sept. 14, 1999.
The conclusions and argumentations were somewhat
different yet the main idea was the same.
The latter paper has appeared long ago
as astro-ph/9908136, and, moreover, I asked
Dr. Postnov and he said that on May 14, 1999
he has turned attention of the future ApJL authors
to this preprint and the preceding one, with
the same idea (astro-ph/9703181).
On the same date, May 14, 1999, they replied that
the luminosity function of GRBs is known to be wide.
There was no answer to the email by Dr. Postnov to Dr. Kulkarni
of March 7, 2001, in which Dr. Postnov informed that
their paper was rejected by AAp, the referee saying
the GRB cannot be the standard candles...
Nevertheless, the ApJL Nov. 20, 2001 paper has no
reference to the Postnov et al. papers.
Probably the ApJL authors could be asked to write
the letter to ApJL with some explanations.
Otherwise the Journal could publish this my mail,
in order do not to participate in the wrong case.
I strongly believe that now when the ADS and LANL preprints
are easy available everywhere, such sad actions ought not to go
without to be noted all over the world.
More so if the authors were surely awared.
Hope to be replied soon.
Sincerely,Yuri N.Efremov Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow
