Gamma-Ray Bursts Overview

TL;DR

This overview summarizes four decades of gamma-ray burst research, highlighting observational advances, key discoveries, and the importance of rapid localization for progress in understanding these energetic cosmic events.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of observational progress, key findings, and the role of space-based instruments in gamma-ray burst research.

Findings

Over 674 GRBs localized to date.

High-quality observations of over 100 GRBs including afterglows and host galaxies.

GRB energy range spans over 20 orders of magnitude.

Abstract

It is now more than 40 years since the discovery of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and in the last two decades there has been major progress in the observations of bursts, the afterglows and their host galaxies. This recent progress has been fueled by the ability of gamma-ray telescopes to quickly localise GRBs and the rapid follow-up observations with multi-wavelength instruments in space and on the ground. A total of 674 GRBs have been localised to date using the coded aperture masks of the four gamma-ray missions, BeppoSAX, HETE II, INTEGRAL and Swift. As a result there are now high quality observations of more than 100 GRBs, including afterglows and host galaxies, revealing the richness and progress in this field. The observations of GRBs cover more than 20 orders of magnitude in energy, from 10^-5 eV to 10^15 eV and also in two non-electromagnetic channels, neutrinos and gravitational waves. However the continuation of progress relies on space based instruments to detect and rapidly localise GRBs and distribute the coordinates.