FERMI AND SWIFT GAMMA-RAY BURST AFTERGLOW POPULATION STUDIES

Journal Article · Sat Sep 10 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/738/2/138; COUNTRY OF INPUT: INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA)· OSTI ID:21584880

Racusin, J L; Donato, D; Gehrels, N; McEnery, J; Sakamoto, T; Troja, E; Vasileiou, V ^[1]; Oates, S R; De Pasquale, M ^[2]; Schady, P ^[3]; Burrows, D N; Koch, S; Roming, P; Swenson, C ^[4]; Piran, T; Wanderman, D ^[5]; Virgili, F; Zhang, B ^[6]

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1. NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD (United States)
2. Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory, University College London, Surrey (United Kingdom)
3. Max-Planck-Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik, Garching (Germany)
4. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA (United States)
5. Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904 (Israel)
6. Department of Physics, University of Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV (United States)

The new and extreme population of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) shows several new features in high-energy gamma rays that are providing interesting and unexpected clues into GRB prompt and afterglow emission mechanisms. Over the last six years, it has been Swift that has provided the robust data set of UV/optical and X-ray afterglow observations that opened many windows into components of GRB emission structure. The relationship between the LAT-detected GRBs and the well-studied, fainter, and less energetic GRBs detected by the Swift Burst Alert Telescope is only beginning to be explored by multi-wavelength studies. We explore the large sample of GRBs detected by BAT only, BAT and the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM), and GBM and LAT, focusing on these samples separately in order to search for statistically significant differences between the populations, using only those GRBs with measured redshifts in order to physically characterize these objects. We disentangle which differences are instrumental selection effects versus intrinsic properties in order to better understand the nature of the special characteristics of the LAT bursts.

• OSTI ID: 21584880
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 738; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
AFTERGLOW
COSMIC GAMMA BURSTS
COSMIC RADIATION
EMISSION
IONIZING RADIATIONS
PRIMARY COSMIC RADIATION
RADIATIONS