Observations of Gamma-ray Bursts in the Fermi era

TL;DR

This paper reviews three years of Fermi observatory observations of gamma-ray bursts, highlighting spectral coverage, detection of high-energy emission, and implications for future observatories and gravitational wave experiments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of Fermi's gamma-ray burst observations, emphasizing the spectral and temporal features and their relation to multi-wavelength data.

Findings

Detection of high-energy emission (>100 MeV) from 35 GRBs in three years

Correlation between high-energy and low-energy spectral features

Prospects for future Very-High Energy and Gravitational Wave observations

Abstract

The Fermi observatory, with its Gamma-Ray Bursts monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT), is observing Gamma-ray Bursts with unprecedented spectral coverage and sensitivity, from ~10 keV to > 300 GeV. In the first 3 years of the mission it observed emission above 100 MeV from 35 GRBs, an order of magnitude gain with respect to previous observations in this energy range. In this paper we review the main results obtained on such sample, highlighting also the relationships with the low-energy features (as measured by the GBM), and with measurements from observatories at other wavelengths. We also briefly discuss prospects for detection of GRBs by future Very-High Energy observatories such as HAWC and CTA, and by Gravitational Wave experiments.