Swift: catching gamma-ray bursts on the fly

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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Gamma-Ray Bursts, Multiwavelength Observations

Scientific paper

Swift is a MIDEX class mission, selected by NASA for development and launch in 2003, optimized for the multiwavelength study of gamma-ray bursts. It will determine the origin of gamma-ray bursts and their afterglows and it will use bursts to probe the early Universe. Swift will also perform the first sensitive hard X-ray survey of the sky. The mission is being developed by an international collaboration and consists of three instruments, the Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), the X-ray Telescope (XRT), and the Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope (UVOT). The BAT, a wide-field gamma-ray detector will detect ~1 gamma-ray burst per day with a sensitivity 5 times that of BATSE. The sensitive narrow-field XRT and UVOT will be autonomously slewed to the burst location in 20 to 70 seconds to determine 0.3-5.0 arcsec positions and perform optical, UV, and X-ray spectrophotometry. Onboard measurements of redshift will also be done for hundreds of bursts. Swift's three instruments use existing flight-spare hardware and designs of missions such as INTEGRAL, JET-X and XMM-Newton. The synergies between Swift, INTEGRAL and Newton are not just technological. The three missions will be, indeed, flying together allowing a unprecedented possibility for coordinated follow-up programs.

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