GRID: a student project to monitor the transient gamma-ray sky in the multi-messenger astronomy era

Jiaxing Wen,Xinbo He,Jianfeng Wu,Longbiao Yan,Ming Zeng,Haoguang Yang,Runyu Zhu,Jing Shu,Yuchen Jiang,Dongxin Yang,Yue Wang,Yifan Yang,Zhigang Sun,He Gao,Wei Deng,Lixin Li,Qiaoya Wu,Hui Sun,Mingming Kang,Wenbin Han,Yinong Liu,Xiaolong Zhou,Qianjun Chen,Boqin Wang,Xuanyi Wu,Liang Huang,Lian Duan,Yuchong Zhang,Wenjin Xie,Changyu Chen,Zhonghai Wang,Yu Zou,Zhengyang Cai,Hang Yang,Meng Su,Zhiang Wang,Shude Mao,Rong Zhou,Shihai Jia,Yingjie Cheng,Yangyi Yu,Ruining Zhao,Peng An,Maoxing Zhang,Wenqing Ding,Gang Liu,Wanqiang Liu,Yanshan Mo,Lin Lin,Sizheng Ma,Bingtao Zhang,Ziyun Chen,Quan Gan,Yang Tian,Zhuo Li,Litao Deng,Xinhao He,Bin-Bin Zhang,Qianqian Lin,Zhi Zeng,Jianjun Wang,Tai Gao,Bing Zhang,Liangjun Chen,Mengyuan Liu,Tianliang Zhang,Lixuan Zhang,Xuelin Tan,Siyao Li,Junling Hu,Shen Zhang,Chang Liu,Hongbing Chen,Jiandong Yu,Shuiyin Qu,Gengyuan Shi,Hengyuan Xiao,Xiangyun Long,Wenfei Yu,Yuanyuan Liang,Yu An,Wei Wang,Rongfeng Shen,Yiying Han,Shengyu Yan,Hua Feng,Wei Lin,Xuefeng Huang,Bo Huang,Mingrui Tao,Hongbang Liu,Can Xu,Aiqiang Zhang,Zhiying Gao,Jirong Cang,Rui Xu,Yurong Li,Da Huang ,Dian Lu ,S H Tang ,Xiaofeng Shan ,Hong-Yi Fan ,J D Liang ,S L Xiong ,Xuewen Li ,Ziran Zhao ,Tianyu Li ,S J Zheng ,Lei Hou ,C Q Feng ,Xiaona Mao ,Z G Dai ,D Xu ,Ké Li ,Xue-Feng Wu ,En‐Wei Liang ,Yi-Fu Cai ,Y J Jin ,Cong‐Zhan Liu ,P H T Tam ,Wan Song ,X F Lu ,Haodong Du ,Yu-Han Yang ,Ling Yao ,P Lu ,Zhao Qing-Hua ,Luo Xi-Yu ,Yi‐Zhong Fan ,Wei Xu ,Y Ma ,Hongxing Yu ,Zhiyuan Lu ,Yue-Peng Che ,Changjin Tang ,Yun-Wei Yu ,Yufei Xia ,Rui Li ,F Y Wang ,X Z Zheng ,Q Y Nie ,Zong-Hong Zhu

doi:10.1007/s10686-019-09636-w

Abstract

The Gamma-Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID) is a space mission concept dedicated to monitoring the transient gamma-ray sky in the energy range from 10 keV to 2 MeV using scintillation detectors onboard CubeSats in low Earth orbits. The primary targets of GRID are the gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the local universe. The scientific goal of GRID is, in synergy with ground-based gravitational wave (GW) detectors such as LIGO and VIRGO, to accumulate a sample of GRBs associated with the merger of two compact stars and study jets and related physics of those objects. It also involves observing and studying other gamma-ray transients such as long GRBs, soft gamma-ray repeaters, terrestrial gamma-ray flashes, and solar flares. With multiple CubeSats in various orbits, GRID is unaffected by the Earth occultation and serves as a full-time and all-sky monitor. Assuming a horizon of 200 Mpc for ground-based GW detectors, we expect to see a few associated GW-GRB events per year. With about 10 CubeSats in operation, GRID is capable of localizing a faint GRB like 170817A with a 90% error radius of about 10 degrees, through triangulation and flux modulation. GRID is proposed and developed by students, with considerable contribution from undergraduate students, and will remain operated as a student project in the future. The current GRID collaboration involves more than 20 institutes and keeps growing. On August 29th, the first GRID detector onboard a CubeSat was launched into a Sun-synchronous orbit and is currently under test.

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