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5 - The Swift era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2012

By
Neil Gehrels  and
David N. Burrows
Edited by
Chryssa Kouveliotou ,
Ralph A. M. J. Wijers  and
Stan Woosley
Neil Gehrels
Affiliation:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
David N. Burrows
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
Chryssa Kouveliotou
Affiliation:
NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville
Ralph A. M. J. Wijers
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Stan Woosley
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Summary

Introduction

The study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remains highly dependent on the capabilities of the observatories that carry out the measurements. The large detector size of BATSE produced an impressively large sample of GRBs for duration and sky distribution studies. The burst localization and repointing capabilities of BeppoSAX led to breakthroughs in host and progenitor understanding. The next phase in our understanding of GRBs is being provided by the Swift mission. In this chapter we discuss the capabilities and findings of the Swift mission and their relevance to our understanding of GRBs. We also examine what is being learned about star formation, supernovae, and the early Universe from the new results. In each section of the chapter, we close with a discussion of the new questions and issues raised by the Swift findings.

The Swift observatory

Swift (Gehrels et al. 2004) carries three instruments: a wide-field Burst Alert Telescope (BAT; Barthelmy et al. 2005a) that detects GRBs and positions them to arcminute accuracy, a narrow-field X-Ray Telescope (XRT; Burrows et al. 2005a) and a UV–Optical Telescope (UVOT; Roming et al. 2005) that observe their afterglows and determine positions to arcsecond accuracy, all within about 2 minutes. BAT is a coded aperture hard X-ray (15–350 keV) imager with 0.5 m2 of CdZnTe detectors (32 000 individual sensors; ~2400 cm2 effective area at 20 keV including mask occultation) and a 1.4 sr half-coded field of view.

Type
Chapter
Information
Gamma-ray Bursts , pp. 73 - 90
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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  • The Swift era
    • By Neil Gehrels, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, David N. Burrows, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
  • Edited by Chryssa Kouveliotou, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ralph A. M. J. Wijers, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Stan Woosley, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: Gamma-ray Bursts
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511980336.006
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  • The Swift era
    • By Neil Gehrels, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, David N. Burrows, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
  • Edited by Chryssa Kouveliotou, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ralph A. M. J. Wijers, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Stan Woosley, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: Gamma-ray Bursts
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511980336.006
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Swift era
    • By Neil Gehrels, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA, David N. Burrows, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802, USA
  • Edited by Chryssa Kouveliotou, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ralph A. M. J. Wijers, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Stan Woosley, University of California, Santa Cruz
  • Book: Gamma-ray Bursts
  • Online publication: 05 December 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511980336.006
Available formats
×