The Gamma Ray Burst section of the White Paper on the Status and Future of Very High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy: A Brief Preliminary Report

摘要

This is a short report on the preliminary findings of the gamma ray burst(GRB) working group for the white paper on the status and future of very highenergy (VHE; >50 GeV) gamma-ray astronomy. The white paper discusses the statusof past and current attempts to observe GRBs at GeV-TeV energies, including ahandful of low-significance, possible detections. The white paper concentrateson the potential of future ground-based gamma-ray experiments to observe thehighest energy emission ever recorded for GRBs, particularly for those that arenearby and have high Lorentz factors in the GRB jet. It is clear that thedetection of VHE emission would have strong implications for GRB models, aswell as cosmic ray origin. In particular, the extended emission phase(including both afterglow emission and possible flaring) of nearby long GRBscould provide the best possibility for detection. The difficult-to-obtainobservations during the prompt phase of nearby long GRBs and short GRBs couldalso provide particularly strong constraints on the opacity and bulk Lorentzfactors surrounding the acceleration site. The synergy with upcoming andexisting observatories will, of course, be critical for both identification ofGRBs and for multiwavelength/multimessenger studies.