Kavli Affiliate: Michael Fausnaugh
| First 5 Authors: Rahul Jayaraman, Michael Fausnaugh, George R. Ricker, Roland Vanderspek,
| Summary:
Very few detections have been made of optical flashes contemporaneous with
the prompt high-energy emission from a gamma-ray burst (GRB). In this work, we
present and analyze light curves of optical GRB flashes and afterglows from the
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) for a sample of eight GRBs that
were localized by the X-ray Telescope on the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.
For each burst, we characterize the prompt optical emission and the afterglow.
For four bursts, we constrain the physical parameters using their TESS light
curves. We also present a straightforward method to correct for TESS’s cosmic
ray mitigation on 20-second timescales, which allows us to estimate the
brightness of optical flashes on timescales of seconds that are associated with
the prompt GRB emission. We estimate that ~10 to 20 GRBs per year will have
detectable optical emission in TESS as the mission proceeds. Finally, we
discuss how TESS’s continuous wide-field monitoring provides an efficient means
of identifying the prompt emission from GRBs and characterizing their
early-time afterglow light curves.
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