GMU Space Sciences Seminar

October 19, 2005

Dr. Scott Barthelmy
NASA

"Swift, BAT, the NFIs, and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs)"

TALK ABSTRACT:
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The Swift MidEx mission was launched in Nov 2004.  Since the commissioning
phase, BAT has been operating 9 months and localized 60+ GRBs (as of Aug
2005).  The two NFI instruments, XRT and UVOT have been operating for a
slightly shorter period.  They have detected the afterglows of many of the BAT
bursts as well as making follow-up observations of INTEGRAL and HETE bursts.
I will present descriptions of the 3 instruments and results, focusing mainly
on the BAT, including some results of the BAT all-sky hard x-ray survey.