Gamma-ray burst observations with GLAST

摘要

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled to be launched in fall of 2007, is the next-generation satellite for high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. The Large Area Telescope (LAT) is a pair conversion telescope built with a high-precision silicon tracker, a segmented Csl electromagnetic calorimeter and a plastic anticoincidence shield. The LAT will survey the sky hi the energy range between 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV, shedding light on many issues left open by its highly successful predecessor EGRET. LAT will observe Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) in an energy range never explored before; to tie these frontier observations to the better-known properties at lower energies, a second instrument, the GLAST Burst Monitor (GBM) will provide important spectra and timing in the lOkeV to 30 MeV range. We briefly present the instruments onboard the GLAST satellite, their synergy in the GRB observations and the work done so far by the collaboration in simulation, analysis, and GRB sensitivity estimation.