The SVOM gamma-ray burst mission
Abstract
We briefly present the science capabilities, the instruments, the operations, and the expected performance of the SVOM mission. SVOM (Space-based multiband astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) is a Chinese-French space mission dedicated to the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the next decade. The SVOM mission encompasses a satellite carrying four instruments to detect and localize the prompt GRB emission and measure the evolution of the afterglow in the visible band and in X-rays, a VHF communication system enabling the fast transmission of SVOM alerts to the ground, and a ground segment including a wide angle camera and two follow-up telescopes. The pointing strategy of the satellite has been optimized to favor the detection of GRBs located in the night hemisphere. This strategy enables the study of the optical emission in the first minutes after the GRB with robotic observatories and the early spectroscopy of the optical afterglow with large telescopes to measure the redshifts. The study of GRBs in the next decade will benefit from a number of large facilities in all wavelengths that will contribute to increase the scientific return of the mission. Finally, SVOM will operate in the era of the next generation of gravitational wave detectors, greatly contributing to searches for the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave triggers at Xray and gamma-ray energies.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1512.03323,
title = {The SVOM gamma-ray burst mission},
author = {B. Cordier and J. Wei and J. -L. Atteia and S. Basa and A. Claret and F. Daigne and J. Deng and Y. Dong and O. Godet and A. Goldwurm and D. Götz and X. Han and A. Klotz and C. Lachaud and J. Osborne and Y. Qiu and S. Schanne and B. Wu and J. Wang and C Wu and L. Xin and B. Zhang and S. -N. Zhang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.03323},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
13 pages, 5 figures, published by PoS, proceedings of the conference Swift: 10 Years of Discovery, 2-5 December 2014, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy