Multiwavelength Gamma-Ray Bursts Observations with ECLAIRs

Abstract

ECLAIRs is the next space borne instrument that will be fully dedicated to multi-wavelength studies of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). It consists of a coded mask telescope with a wide (~2 sr) field of view, made of 6400 CdTe pixels (~1000 cm^2), which will work in the 4-300 keV energy band. It is expected to localise ~80 GRBs/yr, thanks to the on-board real time event processing. The GRBs (and other transients) coordinates will be distributed within a few seconds from the onset of the burst with a typical uncertainty of ~5-10 arcmin. The detection system will also include a soft X-ray camera (1-10 keV) allowing to study in detail the prompt soft X-ray emission and to reduce the error box for about half of the GRBs seen by ECLAIRs to ~30 arcsec. ECLAIRs is expected to be flown in late 2011 and to be the only instrument capable of providing GRB triggers with sufficient localisation accuracy for GRB follow-up observations with the powerful ground based spectroscopic telescopes available by then. We will present the current status of the ECLAIRs project and its possible developments.