HR: 13:55h
AN: AE13A-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: BATSE Observations of TGFs: Further Analysis
AU: * Fishman, J
EM: fishman@msfc.nasa.gov
AF: NASA - Marshall Space Flight Center, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL 35812 United States
AB: Intense millisecond flashes of MeV photons were discovered with the space-borne detectors of the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO). Over the entire CGRO mission, from 1991 until 2000, about 70 of these events were observed. Nearly all TGFs had short (millisecond) durations and sub-ms rise-times and fall-times, however a small fraction of them had longer timescales associated with them. Most were single pulses, but about a dozen had double pulses and a few had more than two pulses. One extreme TGF had over a dozen distinct pulses. The TGFs are observed in a photon-by-photon recording mode, with each photon from eight independent detectors being tagged to the nearest two microseconds in four energy channels. The TGFs show very hard spectra, in most cases there are more photons recorded above 300 keV than below. Several of the TGFs were also recorded by the thicker (but smaller area) spectroscopy detectors that provided improved spectral resolution than the large area detectors. The temporal and spectral characteristics of the events and the capabilities of the detectors will be described in detail.
DE: 0320 Cloud physics and chemistry
DE: 7554 X-rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos
DE: 7845 Particle acceleration
SC: Atmospheric and Space Electricity [AE]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005