Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 2-1-2008

Publication Title

The Astrophysical Journal

Volume

673

Publisher

The American Astronomical Society

Abstract

We use semianalytic techniques to evaluate the burst sensitivity of designs for the EXIST hard X-ray survey mis-sion. Applying these techniques to the mission design proposed for the Beyond Einstein program,we find that with its very large field of view and faint gamma-ray burst detection threshold, EXIST will detect and localize approximately two bursts per day, a large fraction of which may be at high redshift. We estimate that EXIST’s maximum sensitivity will be ~4 times greater than that of Swift’s Burst Alert Telescope. Bursts will be localized to better than 40" at thresh-old, with a burst position as good asa few arcsecondsfor strong bursts. EXIST’s combination of three different detector systems will provide spectra from 3 keV to more than 10 MeV. Thus, EXIST will enable a major leap in the understand-ing of bursts, their evolution, environment, and utility as cosmological probes.

Comments

This manuscript has been published in the Astrophysical Journal. Please find the published version here (note that a subscription is necessary to access this version):

http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/673/2/1225/fulltext/

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