Solving the Mystery of the Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Bursts

Physics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Hst Proposal Id #10624 Galaxies

Scientific paper

Eight years after the afterglow detections that revolutionized studies of the long-soft gamma-ray bursts, not even one afterglow of a short-hard GRB has been seen, and the nature of these events has become one of the most important problems in GRB research. The Swift satellite, expected to be in full operation throughout Cycle 14, will report few-arcsecond localizations for short-hard bursts in minutes, enabling prompt, deep optical afterglow searches for the first time. Discovery and observation of the first short-hard optical afterglows will answer most of the critical questions about these events: What are their distances and energies? Do they occur in distant galaxies, and if so, in which regions of those galaxies? Are they the result of collimated or quasi-spherical explosions? In combination with an extensive rapid-response ground-based campaign, we propose to make the critical high-sensitivity HST TOO observations that will allow us to answer these questions. If theorists are correct in attributing the short-hard bursts to binary neutron star coalescence events, then they will serve as signposts to the primary targeted source population for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors, and short-hard burst studies will have a vital role to play in guiding those observations.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Solving the Mystery of the Short-Hard 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 Solving the Mystery of the Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Bursts, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Solving the Mystery of the Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Bursts will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1250401

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.