Skip to main content
New! Circulars over Kafka, Heartbeat Topic, and Schema v4.1.0. See news and announcements

GCN Circular 34604

Subject
GRB 230827B: Glowbug gamma-ray detection
Date
2023-08-30T14:51:11Z (a year ago)
From
matthew.kerr@gmail.com
Via
Web form
M. Kerr, C.C. Cheung, J. E. Grove, R. Woolf (NRL), A. Goldstein (USRA), C.A. Wilson-Hodge (MSFC), and M.S. Briggs (UAH) report:

The Glowbug [1,2] gamma-ray telescope, operating on the International Space Station, reports the detection of GRB 230827B, which was also detected by Fermi/GBM, VZLUSAT-2, GECAM-B (trigger 215), INTEGRAL/SPI-ACS, and CALET (GCN 34584, 34585, 34593).

Using an adaptive window with a resolution of 32-ms, the burst onset is determined to be 2023-08-27 06:08:30.320 with a duration of 10.6 s and a total significance of about 57.8 sigma.  The light-curve comprises two similar FRED pulses with widths of about 1s, separated by about 5s, each with tails of faint emission lasting about 5s.

Using a standard power-law function with an exponential high-energy cutoff [3] to model the emission over this duration results in a photon index dN/dE~E^x of x=0.4 and a cutoff energy ("Epeak") of 272 keV.  The modeled 10-10000 keV fluence is 1.3e-05 erg/cm^2.

The analysis results presented here are preliminary and use a response function that lacks a detailed characterization of the surrounding passive structure of the ISS.

Glowbug is a NASA-funded technology demonstrator for sensitive, low-cost gamma-ray transient telescopes developed, built, and operated by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) with support from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, USRA, and NASA MSFC.  It was launched on 2023 March 15 aboard the Department of Defense Space Test Program’s STP-H9 to the ISS.  The detector comprises 12 large-area (15 cm x 15 cm) CsI:Tl panels covering the surface of a half cube, and two hexagonal (5-cm diameter, 10-cm length) CLLB scintillators, giving it a large field of view (instantaneous FoV ~2/3 sky) over a wide energy band of 50 keV to >2 MeV.

[1] Grove, J.E. et al. 2020, Proc. Yamada Conf. LXXI, arXiv:2009.11959
[2] Woolf, R.S. et al. 2022, Proc. SPIE, 12181, id. 121811O
[3] Goldstein, A. et al. 2020, ApJ 895, 40, arXiv :1909.03006

Distribution Statement A: Approved for public release.  Distribution is unlimited.
Looking for U.S. government information and services? Visit USA.gov