Scientific Highlights of the HETE-2 Mission
arXiv:astro-ph/0309462 · doi:10.1016/j.newar.2003.12.042
Abstract
The HETE-2 mission has been highly productive. It has observed more than 250 GRBs so far. It is currently localizing 25 - 30 GRBs per year, and has localized 43 GRBs to date. Twenty-one of these localizations have led to the detection of X-ray, optical, or radio afterglows, and as of now, 11 of the bursts with afterglows have known redshifts. HETE-2 has confirmed the connection between GRBs and Type Ic supernovae, a singular achievement and certainly one of the scientific highlights of the mission so far. It has provided evidence that the isotropic-equivalent energies and luminosities of GRBs are correlated with redshift, implying that GRBs and their progenitors evolve strongly with redshift. Both of these results have profound implications for the nature of GRB progenitors and for the use of GRBs as a probe of cosmology and the early universe. HETE-2 has placed severe constraints on any X-ray or optical afterglow of a short GRB. It is also solving the mystery of "optically dark' GRBs, and revealing the nature of X-ray flashes.
10 pages, 9 figures, to appear in proc. "The Restless High-Energy Universe", Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam; revised text, added refs
References in corpus (17)
- Intrinsic spectra and energetics of BeppoSAX Gamma-Ray Bursts with known redshifts
- Spectroscopic Discovery of the Supernova 2003dh Associated with GRB 030329
- Discovery of the X-Ray Afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst of February 28 1997
- Observation of contemporaneous optical radiation from a gamma-ray burst
- Predictions for The Very Early Afterglow and The Optical Flash
- Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Probe of the Very High Redshift Universe
- Gamma-Ray Bursts as a Probe of the Very High Redshift Universe
- Detection of the optical afterglow of GRB 000630: Implications for dark bursts
- Discovery of Early Optical Emission from GRB 021211
- The Early Light Curve of the Optical Afterglow of GRB 021211
- The bright optical afterglow of the nearby gamma-ray burst of 29 March 2003
- The Faint Optical Afterglow and Host Galaxy of GRB 020124: Implications for the Nature of Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts
- On the role of extinction in failed gamma-ray burst optical/IR afterglows
- Evidence for a Molecular Cloud Origin for Gamma-Ray Bursts: Implications for the Nature of Star Formation in the Universe
- Luminosities and Space Densities of Short Gamma-Ray Bursts
- HETE-2 Localization and Observation of the Bright, X-Ray-Rich Gamma-Ray Burst GRB021211
- Implications of Recent Observational Discoveries for the Nature and Origin of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Cited by in corpus (56)
- Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Swift Era
- The Afterglows of Swift-era Gamma-Ray Bursts. I. Comparing pre-Swift and Swift era Long/Soft (Type II) GRB Optical Afterglows
- Discovery of the short gamma-ray burst GRB 050709
- Constraining and Dark Energy with Gamma-Ray Bursts
- Swift Identification of Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts
- Extremely energetic Fermi Gamma-Ray Bursts obey spectral energy correlations
- Swift observations of the X-ray bright GRB 050315
- A Unified Jet Model of X-Ray Flashes, X-Ray-Rich Gamma-Ray Bursts, and Gamma-Ray Bursts: I. Power-Law-Shaped Universal and Top-Hat-Shaped Variable Opening-Angle Jet Models
- Gravitational Waves: Sources, Detectors and Searches
- An Interpretation of the - Correlation for GRB
- The Luminosity - E_p Relation within Gamma--Ray Bursts and Implications for Fireball Models
- X-ray flare in XRF 050406: evidence for prolonged engine activity
- A Unified Model of Short and Long Gamma-Ray Bursts, X-Ray Rich Gamma-Ray Bursts, and X-Ray Flashes
- Ly-alpha and UV emission from high-redshift GRB hosts: To what extent do GRBs trace star formation?
- Confirming the gamma-ray burst spectral-energy correlations in the era of multiple time breaks
- Measuring cosmological parameters with Gamma-Ray Bursts
- A Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with the Gamma Ray Burst GRB030329 Using the LIGO Detectors
- Possible Origins of Dispersion of the Peak Energy--Brightness Correlations of Gamma-Ray Bursts
- GRB 020410: A Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Discovered by its Supernova Light
- Can Gamma-Ray Bursts Be Used to Measure Cosmology? A Further Analysis
- Afterglow Observations Shed New Light on the Nature of X-ray Flashes
- Intrinsic properties of a complete sample of HETE-2 gamma-ray bursts. A measure of the GRB rate in the Local Universe
- Possible existence of Ep-Lp and Ep-Eiso correlations for Short Gamma-Ray Bursts with a factor 5 to 100 dimmer than those for Long Gamma-Ray Bursts
- Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimeter - GAP - aboard the Small Solar Power Sail Demonstrator IKAROS
- Infrared and Optical Observations of GRB 030115 and its Extremely Red Host Galaxy: Implications for Dark Bursts
- Confirmation of the $\eps$ -- $\eiso$ (Amati) relation from the X-ray flash XRF 050416A observed by Swift/BAT
- The Radio Afterglow and Host Galaxy of the Dark GRB 020819
- A Search for Untriggered GRB Afterglows with ROTSE-III
- Ep-Eiso Correlation in a Multiple Subjet Model of Gamma-Ray Bursts
- Spectral evolution in gamma-ray bursts: predictions of the internal shock model and comparison to observations
- Swift and optical observations of GRB 050401
- A comprehensive statistical study on gamma-ray bursts
- High-Energy Aspects of Astrophysical Jets
- Short Gamma Ray Bursts: a bimodal origin?
- Prompt and afterglow X-ray emission from the X-Ray Flash of 2002 April 27
- Optical Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts, the Discovery of Supernovae 2005bv, 2005ee, and 2006ak, and Searches for Transients Using the "MASTER" Robotic Telescope
- The Peak Energy Distribution of the nu F_nu Spectra and the Implications for the Jet Structure Models of Gamma-Ray Bursts
- A possible observational evidence for angular distribution of opening half-angle of GRB jets
- Statistical studies of optically dark gamma-ray bursts in the Swift era
- Discovery of the Near-IR Afterglow and of the Host of GRB 030528
- Anatomy of A Dark Burst - The Afterglow of GRB 060108
- A Deep Search with HST for Late Time Supernova Signatures in the Hosts of XRF 011030 and XRF 020427
- Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows as Analogues of High Frequency-Peaked BL Lac Objects
- GRB 050822: Detailed analysis of an XRF observed by Swift
- On the correlation of Short Gamma--Ray Bursts and Clusters of galaxies
- Probing the Structure of Gamma-Ray Burst Jets with Steep Decay Phase of their Early X-ray Afterglows
- Screw Instability of Magnetic Field and Gamma-Ray Bursts in Type Ib/C Supernovae
- Out of the darkness: the infrared afterglow of the INTEGRAL burst GRB 040422 observed with the VLT
- The weak INTEGRAL bursts GRB040223 and GRB040624: an emerging population of dark afterglows
- GRB 040403: a faint X-ray rich Gamma-ray Burst discovered by INTEGRAL
- Early-Time Chromatic Variations in the Wind-Swept Medium of GRB 021211 and the Faintness of its Afterglow
- Using the Active Collimator and Shield Assembly of an EXIST-Type Mission as a Gamma-Ray Burst Spectrometer
- Afterglows after Swift
- Observations of GRB 060526 Optical Afterglow with Russian-Turkish 1.5-m Telescope
- The X-ray Afterglow of Dark GRB 970815: A Common Origin for GRBs and XRFs?
- The key role of BeppoSAX in the GRB history