Kavli Affiliate: Michael Fausnaugh
| First 5 Authors: Rahul Jayaraman, Michael Fausnaugh, George R. Ricker, Roland Vanderspek,
| Summary:
Throughout the past three decades, only a few tens of observations have been
made of optical flashes contemporaneous with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), despite
the thousands of GRBs that have been detected during that same timeframe. In
this work, we present light curves from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS) for a sample of 7 GRBs that were localized to within 10" by
the Swift X-ray Telescope. For each burst, we characterize both the prompt
emission, if it exists, and the afterglow, and conduct searches for late-time
emission from a supernova or kilonova component. We also constrain the physical
parameters of the burst based on the TESS light curve, and present a novel
method to account for the effects of TESS’s cosmic ray mitigation strategy on
the observed flux from these GRBs. This allows us to establish upper limits on
the true magnitude of any GRB-associated optical flash. Finally, we discuss how
TESS’s continuous monitoring and new weekly downlink schedule are proving
invaluable in the rapid follow-up and characterization of short-duration
transients, including GRBs; these could potentially enable TESS to detect
electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave events.
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