The Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission

By N. Gehrels, G. Chincarini, P. Giommi, K. Mason, J. Nousek, A. Wells, N. White, S. Barthelmy, D. Burrows, L. Cominsky and 61 more. 2004

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The Swift mission, scheduled for launch in 2004, is a multiwavelength observatory for gamma-ray burst (GRB) astronomy. It is a first-of-its-kind autonomous rapid-slewing satellite for transient astronomy and pioneers the way for future rapid-reaction and multiwavelength missions. It will be far more powerful than any previous GRB mission, observing more than 100 bursts yr-1 and performing detailed X-ray and UV/optical afterglow observations spanning timescales from 1 minute to several days after the burst. The objectives are to (1) determine the origin of GRBs, (2) classify GRBs and search for new types, (3) study the interaction of the ultrarelativistic outflows of GRBs with their surrounding medium, and (4) use GRBs to study the early universe out to z > 10. The mission is being developed by a NASA-led international collaboration. It will carry three instruments: a new-generation wide-field gamma-ray (15-150 keV) detector that will detect bursts, calculate 1'-4' positions, and trigger autonomous spacecraft slews; a narrow-field X-ray telescope that will give 5'' positions and perform spectroscopy in the 0.2-10 keV band; and a narrow-field UV/optical telescope that will operate in the 170-600 nm band and provide 0.″3 positions and optical finding charts. Redshift determinations will be made for most bursts. In addition to the primary GRB science, the mission will perform a hard X-ray survey to a sensitivity of ~1 mcrab (~2 × 10-11 ergs cm-2 s-1 in the 15-150 keV band), more than an order of magnitude better than HEAO 1 A-4. A flexible data and operations system will allow rapid follow-up observations of all types of high-energy transients, with rapid data downlink and uplink available through the NASA TDRSS system. Swift transient data will be rapidly distributed to the astronomical community, and all interested observers are encouraged to participate in follow-up measurements. A Guest Investigator program for the mission will provide funding for community involvement. Innovations from the Swift program applicable to the future include (1) a large-area gamma-ray detector using the new CdZnTe detectors, (2) an autonomous rapid-slewing spacecraft, (3) a multiwavelength payload combining optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray instruments, (4) an observing program coordinated with other ground-based and space-based observatories, and (5) immediate multiwavelength data flow to the community. The mission is currently funded for 2 yr of operations, and the spacecraft will have a lifetime to orbital decay of ~8 yr.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

• Testing the Curvature Effect and Internal Origin of Gamma-Ray Burst Prompt Emissions and X-Ray Flares with Swift Data (2006, background): “The successful launch and operation of the Swift mission (Gehrels et al. 2004) have led to several important discoveries (e.g. Tagliaferri et al. 2005; Burrows et al. 2005; Gehrels et al. 2005; Fox et al. 2005; Barthelmy et al. 2005; Roming et al. 2006; Cusumano et al. 2006a).”
• GRB hosts through cosmic time - VLT/X-Shooter emission-line spectroscopy of 96 γ-ray-burst-selected galaxies at 0.1 (2015, background): “As we, however, heterogeneously draw our GRBs from a larger parent sample of Swift GRBs, it is important to test how representative our GRB hosts really are.”
• FROM SHOCK BREAKOUT TO PEAK AND BEYOND: EXTENSIVE PANCHROMATIC OBSERVATIONS OF THE TYPE Ib SUPERNOVA 2008D ASSOCIATED WITH SWIFT X-RAY TRANSIENT 080109 (2008, background): “Recently, the Swift satellite (Gehrels et al. 2004) with its rapid slewing capabilities, space-based nature, and X-ray and optical/ultraviolet telescopes has opened a new window for SN observations soon after their massive progenitors explode.”
• Model-independent Multivariable Gamma-Ray Burst Luminosity Indicator and Its Possible Cosmological Implications (2005, background): “Since launched on Nov. 20, 2004, the Swift mission (Gehrels et al. 2004) is regularly detecting GRBs with a rate of ∼ 80 bursts per year.”
• A Comprehensive Analysis of Swift XRT Data. II. Diverse Physical Origins of the Shallow Decay Segment (2007, background): “The observations for the gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon with the Swift satellite (Gehrels et al. 2004) have revolutionized our understanding on this phenomenon in many aspects (see recent reviews by Mészáros 2006; Zhang 2007).”
• THE STAR FORMATION RATE IN THE REIONIZATION ERA AS INDICATED BY GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2009, background): “Swift8 (Gehrels et al. 2004) has pushed the former greatly ahead, and allowed studies of the latter.”
• The PalermoSwift-BAT hard X-ray catalogue: II. Results after 39 months of sky survey (2009, background): “The Burst Alert Telescope (BAT; Barthelmy et al. 2005) on board theSwift observatory (Gehrels et al. 2004), with its large field of view (100◦ × 60◦ half coded) and large detector area (a factor of 2 greater than ISGRI) offers the opportunity for a large increase of the sample of objects that…”
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. V. Rising X-Ray Emission from an Off-axis Jet (2017, background): “The Swift spacecraft (Gehrels et al. 2004) started observations of the optical counterpart of LIGO/Virgo GW170817 (Allam et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017a, 2017b; Soares-Santos et al. 2017; Yang et al. 2017) with the X-ray telescope (XRT; Burrows et al. 2005) on August 18, 03:33:33UT, 14.9 hr after…”
• GRB 080503: IMPLICATIONS OF A NAKED SHORT GAMMA-RAY BURST DOMINATED BY EXTENDED EMISSION (2008, background): “…Denver, CO 80208 17 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH Despite significant progress since the launch of the Swift satellite (Gehrels et al. 2004), the origin of shortduration, hard-spectrum gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) remains elusive.”
• CALIBRATION OF THE NuSTAR HIGH-ENERGY FOCUSING X-RAY TELESCOPE (2015, methodology): “…calibration, and in § 5 we preset the cross-calibration between NuSTAR and the concurrent observatories: Chandra (Weisskopf et al. 2002), INTEGRAL (Winkler et al. 2003), NuSTAR (Harrison et al. 2013), Suzaku (Mitsuda et al. 2007), Swift (Gehrels et al. 2004), and XMMNewton (Jansen et al. 2001).”
• The Observer's Guide to the Gamma-Ray Burst-Supernova Connection (2016, methodology): “The launch of the Swift satellite [9] dramatically changed the way we studied GRBs and the GRB-SN association, and the number of events detected by this mission has helped increase the GRB-SN sample size by a factor of three since the pre-Swift era.”
• THE COSMIC RATE, LUMINOSITY FUNCTION, AND INTRINSIC CORRELATIONS OF LONG GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2009, background): “INTRODUCTION The Swift satellite (Gehrels et al. 2004) has transformed the study of Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows.”
• THE SWIFT/BAT HARD X-RAY TRANSIENT MONITOR (2006, background): “When the Swift mission (Gehrels et al. 2004) was first conceived, it was understood that the Burst Alert Telescope (Barthelmy et al. 2005) would be very useful for serendipitous hard X-ray survey science in addition to its primary role in gamma-ray burst (GRB) science.”
• THE SIMULTANEOUS OPTICAL-TO-X-RAY SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF SOFT X-RAY SELECTED ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI OBSERVED BY SWIFT (2010, background): “The Swift mission (Gehrels et al. 2004) was launched on 2004 November 20.”
• Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies (2015, methodology): “We will also introduce more local results from, e.g., the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer (hereafter Swift ; e.g., Gehrels et al 2004) and the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (hereafter INTEGRAL; e.g., Winkler et al 2003) where they connect strongly with results from the distant…”