2013/07/12 by S. Lombardi, A. Carosi, Lombardi, Saverio +3
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Medical Imaging Techniques and Applications #Particle Detector Development and Performance
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1307.3450
openalex publication_date 2013/07/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In the current view of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) phenomena, an emission component\nextending up to the very-high energy (VHE, E > 30 GeV) domain is though to be a\nrelatively common feature at least in the brightest events. This leads to an\nunexpected richness of possible theoretical models able to describe such\nphenomenology. Hints of emission at tens of GeV are indeed known since the\nEGRET observations during the '90s and confirmed in the Fermi-LAT data.\nHowever, our comprehension of these phenomena is still far to be satisfactory.\nIn this respect, the VHE characterization of GRBs may constitute a breakthrough\nfor understanding their physics and, possibly, for providing decisive clues for\nthe discrimination among different proposed emission mechanisms, which are\nbarely distinguishable at lower energies. The current generation of Cherenkov\nobservatories, such as the MAGIC telescopes, have opened the possibility to\nextend the measurement of GRB emission, and in general to any short time-scale\ntransient phenomena, fromfew tens of GeV up to the TeV energy range, with a\nhigher sensitivity with respect to gamma-ray space-based instruments. In the\nnear future, a crucial role for the VHE observations of GRBs will be played by\nthe Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), thanks to its about one order of magnitude\nbetter sensitivity and lower energy threshold with respect to current\ninstruments. In this contribution, we present a method aimed at providing VHE\ndetection prospects for observations of GRB-like transient events with\nCherenkov telescopes. In particular, we consider the observation of the\ntransient event GRB 090102 as a test case for the method and show the achieved\ndetection prospects under different observational conditions for the MAGIC\ntelescopes and CTA.\n