Spectral Cross-Calibration of the Konus-Wind, the Suzaku/WAM, and the Swift/BAT Data Using Gamma-Ray Bursts

We report on the spectral cross-calibration results of the Konus-Wind, the Suzaku/WAM, and the Swift/BAT instruments using simultaneously observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). This is the first attempt to use simultaneously observed GRBs as a spectral calibration source to understand systematic problems among the instruments. Based on these joint spectral fits, we find that (1) although a constant factor (a normalization factor) agrees within 20% among the instruments, the BAT constant factor shows a systematically smaller value by 10%-20% compared to that of Konus-Wind, (2) there is a systematic trend that the low-energy photon index becomes steeper by 0.1-0.2 and E-peak becomes systematically higher by 10%-20% when including the BAT data in the joint fits, and (3) the high-energy photon index agrees within 0.2 among the instruments. Our results show that cross-calibration based on joint spectral analysis is an important step to understanding the instrumental effects that could be affecting the scientific results from the GRB prompt emission data.