Gamma-ray burst detection with INTEGRAL/SPI

Abstract

The spectrometer SPI, one of the two main instruments of the INTEGRAL spacecraft, has strong capabilities in the field of Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB)detections. In its 16° field of view (FoV) SPI is able to trigger and to localize GRBs. With its large anticoincidence shield (ACS) of 512 kg of BGO crystals SPI is able to detect GRBs quasi omnidirectionally with a very high sensitivity. The ACS GRB alerts will provide GRB arrival times with high accuracy but with no or very rough positional information. The expected GRB detection rate in SPI's FoV will be one per month and for the ACS around 300 per year. At MPE two SPI software contributions to the real-time INTEGRAL burst-alert system (IBAS) at the INTEGRAL science data centre ISDC have been developed. The SPI-ACS branch of IBAS will produce burst alerts and light-curves with 50 ms resolution. It is planned to use ACS burst alerts in the 3rd interplanetary network. The SPI-FoV branch of IBAS is currently under development at MPE. The system is using the energy and timing information of single and multiple events detected by the Germanium-camera of SPI. Using the imaging algorithm developed at the University of Birmingham the system is expected to locate strong bursts with an accuracy of better than 1°.