GCN Circular 34900
Subject
GRB 231028A: Glowbug gamma-ray detection
Date
2023-10-29T03:45:23Z (7 months ago)
From
J. Eric Grove at U.S. Naval Research Laboratory <eric.grove@nrl.navy.mil>
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 gamma-ray telescope [1,2], operating on the International Space Station, reports the detection of GRB 231028A, which was also detected by Fermi/GBM (GCN 34893, 34899) and Swift/BAT (GCN 34894).
Using an adaptive window with a resolution of 32-ms, the burst onset is determined to be 2023-10-28 04:09:01.344 with a duration of 47.1 s and a total significance of about 91.2 sigma. The light curve comprises a structured main peak with at least two following peaks.
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=1.9 and a cutoff energy ("Epeak") of 198 keV. The modeled 10-10000 keV fluence is 9.8e-06 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
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