The first simultaneous detection of a short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) with a gravitational-wave (GW) signal ushered in a new era of multi-messenger astronomy. In order to increase the number of SGRB-GW simultaneous detections, we need full sky coverage in the gamma-ray regime. BurstCube, a CubeSat for Gravitational Wave Counterparts, aims to expand sky coverage in order to detect and localize gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). BurstCube will be comprised of 4 Cesium Iodide scintillators coupled to arrays of Silicon photo-multipliers on a 6U CubeSat bus (a single U corresponds to cubic unit ∼10 cm × 10 cm × 10 cm) and will be sensitive to gamma-rays between 50 keV and 1 MeV, the ideal energy range for GRB prompt emission. BurstCube will assist current observatories, such as Swift and Fermi, in the detection of GRBs as well as provide astronomical context to gravitational wave events detected by Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo, and KAGRA. BurstCube is currently in its development and testing phase to prepare for launch readiness in the fall of 2021. We present the mission concept, preliminary performance, and status.
@article{arxiv.1907.11069,
title = {BurstCube: Concept, Performance, and Status},
author = {Jacob R. Smith and Michael S. Briggs and Alessandro Bruno and Eric Burns and Regina Caputo and Brad Cenko and Antonino Cucchiara and Georgia de Nolfo and Sean Griffin and Lorraine Hanlon and Dieter H. Hartmann and Michelle Hui and Alyson Joens and Carolyn Kierans and Dan Kocevski and John Krizmanic and Amy Lien and Sheila McBreen and Julie E. McEnery and Lee Mitchell and David Morris and David Murphy and Jeremy S. Perkins and Judy Racusin and Peter Shawhan and Teresa Tatoli and Alexey Uliyanov and Sarah Walsh and Colleen Wilson-Hodge},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.11069},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
In the 36th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Madison, WI, USA