A complete catalog of radio afterglows: The first five years

We present a catalog of 75 gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that occurred between 1997 and 2001 and for which accurate positions were obtained by the BeppoSAX satellite, the Interplanetary Network, the Rossi X-Ray Timing Experiment satellite, and the High Energy Transient Experiment satellite. As a result of these localizations, we carried out sensitive searches for radio afterglows using the Very Large Array and the Australia Telescope Compact Array, at a frequency of 5 or 8.5 GHz. Subsequent afterglow detections were followed up using several facilities at centimeter, millimeter, and submillimeter wavelengths. The final catalog has 25 afterglow detections and consists of 1521 flux density measurements ( or upper limits) at frequencies between 1.4 and 650 GHz. We argue that our search strategy is capable of identifying radio afterglows and distinguishing them from other extragalactic variables whose areal density we derive to be less than or similar to 1.6 x 10(-3) arcmin(-2). In addition to complete radio light curves for all cosmological GRBs, the catalog also contains the entire data set for SN 1998bw, an unusual Type Ib/c supernova coincident with GRB 980425.