X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts

Details X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts

2005-11-10

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0511310v1

Journal: Photonics for Space Environments X. Edited by Taylor, Edward W. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 58981J, 2005

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

14 pages, 10 figures, spie.cls needed

Scientific paper

Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic eruptions known in the Universe. Instruments such as Compton-GRO/BATSE and the GRB monitor on BeppoSAX have detected more than 2700 GRBs and, although observational confirmation is still required, it is now generally accepted that many of these bursts are associated with the collapse of rapidly spinning massive stars to form black holes. Consequently, since first generation stars are expected to be very massive, GRBs are likely to have occurred in significant numbers at early epochs. X-red is a space mission concept designed to detect these extremely high redshifted GRBs, in order to probe the nature of the first generation of stars and hence the time of reionisation of the early Universe. We demonstrate that the gamma and x-ray luminosities of typical GRBs render them detectable up to extremely high redshifts (z~10-30), but that current missions such as HETE2 and SWIFT operate outside the observational range for detection of high redshift GRB afterglows. Therefore, to redress this, we present a complete mission design from the science case to the mission architecture and payload, the latter comprising three instruments, namely wide field x-ray cameras to detect high redshift gamma-rays, an x-ray focussing telescope to determine accurate coordinates and extract spectra, and an infrared spectrograph to observe the high redshift optical afterglow. The mission is expected to detect and identify for the first time GRBs with z > 10, thereby providing constraints on properties of the first generation of stars and the history of the early Universe.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and X-RED: A Satellite Mission Concept To Detect Early Universe Gamma Ray Bursts will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-385837