Prompt Optical Photons from Gamma-Ray Bursts
C.W. Akerlof
Abstract
On January 23, 1999, the ROTSE-I telephoto camera array detected a
bright
optical transient from a gamma-ray burst, contemporaneous with the gamma-ray
emission. This observation by a collaboration of the University of Michigan,
Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
culminated efforts by many people to construct a telescope system with a
response of a few seconds. Although ROTSE-I has observed 35 GRB events since
it was commissioned in March 1998, no other fast optical counterparts have
been detected. In addition to showing the results for GRB990123, data for
the
the other brightest seven GRBs will be presented for which we have better
localization information such as IPN arcs. Future plans for the ROTSE
project
will be discussed in light of these developments.
File translated from TEX by TTH, version 2.32.
On 12 Aug 1999, 16:34.