1999ApJ...514..862B

With the discovery that the afterglows after some bursts are coincident with faint galaxies, the search for host galaxies is no longer a test of whether bursts are at cosmological distances, but rather a test of particular cosmological models. The methodology we developed to investigate the original ``no host galaxy'' problem is equally valid for testing different cosmological models and is applicable to the galaxies coincident with optical transients. We apply this methodology to a family of models where we vary the total energy of standard candle bursts. We find that total isotropic energies of E<2x10⁵² ergs are ruled out, while E∼10⁵³ ergs is favored.