A Search for Early Optical Emission at Gamma-Ray Burst Locations by the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI)

Abstract

The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) views nearly every point on the sky once every 102 minutes and can detect point sources as faint as R~10th magnitude. Therefore, SMEI can detect or provide upper limits for the optical afterglow from gamma-ray bursts in the tens of minutes after the burst when different shocked regions may emit optically. Here we provide upper limits for 58 bursts between 2003 February and 2005 April.

accepted for publication in ApJ, 17 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (3)

• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A Link between Prompt Optical and Prompt Gamma-Ray Emission in Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A contemporaneous infrared flash from a long gamma-ray burst: an echo from the central engine

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• Nova light curves from the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) - II. The extended catalog
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