Observing GRBs with TMT

Abstract

The Thirty-Meter Telescope is an ambitious project to build a giant segmented mirror telescope with fully integrated adaptive optics systems that will produce diffraction-limited images. A powerful suite of instruments is being developed that, coupled with the ability to rapidly switch between targets and instruments, will allow TMT to take advantage of GRBs to probe fundamental physics in extreme conditions and as the ultimate tomographic beacons, especially if some are as far as z ~ 10. This article gives a brief summary of TMT and its instruments, and some examples of the potential offered by observation of GRBs.