# The ARGO-YBJ Detector and high energy GRBs

## 1 Introduction

The study of the GeV-TeV component of gamma-ray bursts is of great importance to understand the acceleration mechanisms and the sources physical conditions. The detection of GeV gamma-rays by EGRET during some intense GRBs egret (Catelli et al., 1997) suggests the possibility that a high energy component could be present in all events. Furthermore several models predict GeV and TeV emission, sometimes correlated with UHECRs production (see Baring (1997), for a review). Due to the low fluxes and the small sensitive areas of satellite experiments, gamma-rays of energy larger than a few tens of GeV, must be detected by ground based experiments located at mountain altitude measuring the secondary particles generated by gamma-rays in the atmosphere. At energies E $`<`$ 10 TeV the number of particles reaching the ground is to small to reconstruct the shower parameters using a standard air shower array, made of several detectors spread over large areas. On the contrary, a detector consisting of a full coverage layer of counters, providing a high granularity sampling of all particle showers, can succesfully measure arrival direction and primary energy of small showers, allowing the study of the unexplored range of gamma energies between 20 GeV and 300 GeV proposal (Abbrescia et al., 1996).

## 2 The ARGO-YBJ detector

ARGO-YBJ is an air shower detector optimized to observe small size showers, to be constructed in the Yangbajing Laboratory (Tibet, China) at an altitude of 4300 m a.s.l. The experiment consists of a $``$ 71$`\times `$74 m<sup>2</sup> core detector realised with a single layer of RPC’s ($`90\%`$ of active area), surrounded by an outer detector ($`30\%`$ of active area) for a total size of $``$ 100$`\times `$100 m<sup>2</sup>. A lead converter 0.5 cm thick will cover uniformly the RPC plane in order to increase the number of charged particles by conversion of shower photons in $`e^\pm `$ and to reduce the time spread of the shower front addendum (Bacci et al., 1998). ARGO-YBJ can image with high efficiency and sensitivity atmospheric showers initiated by primaries of energies in the range 10 GeV$`÷`$ 500 TeV. Its main physics goals are proposal (Abbrescia et al., 1996): Gamma-astronomy at $``$ 100 GeV energy threshold, with a sensitivity to detect unidentified point sources of intensity as low as $`10\%`$ of the Crab Nebula; Gamma-Ray Burst physics, extending the satellite measurements at energies E $`>`$ 10 GeV; $`\overline{p}/p`$ ratio in the TeV energy range; Sun and heliosphere physics. The detector assembling should start in 2000 and data taking with the first $`750`$ $`m^2`$ of RPC’s in 2001.

## 3 Sensitivity to high energy GRBs

A high energy GRB is detectable if the number of air showers from the gamma-rays is significant larger than the fluctuations of the background, due to showers from cosmic rays with arrival directions compatible with the burst position. A good angular resolution is of major importance in order to reduce the background and increase the detection sensitivity. The angular resolution and the effective area of ARGO-YBJ to detect gamma-rays as a function of the energy have been obtained by means of simulations. For gamma-rays with energy as low as E $``$ 10-20 GeV, the opening angle around the source direction in which 70$`\%`$ of the signal showers are contained is $``$ 5.

To evaluate the sensitivity of ARGO-YBJ to detect GRBs, we considered a burst with a power law energy spectrum $`dN/dEE^\alpha `$ extending in the range 1 GeV $`÷E_{max}`$, a duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$=1 s, and a zenith angle $`\theta `$=20. The burst will give a signal with a significance larger than 4 standard deviations if the energy fluence in the range 1 GeV $`÷E_{max}`$ is larger than a minimum value F<sub>min</sub>. Fig.1 shows F<sub>min</sub> as a function of $`E_{max}`$ for 3 spectral slopes. For a generic duration $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ the minimum fluences detectable are given by $`F_{min}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }t}`$.

In the energy range considered the sensitivity is strongly dependent on the maximum energy of the spectrum $`E_{max}`$. ARGO-YBJ can observe GRBs with energy fluences of a few 10<sup>-6</sup> erg cm<sup>-2</sup> if the energy spectrum extends at least up to $``$ 200 GeV with a slope $`\alpha `$2; the minimum detectable fluence is $``$ 10<sup>-5</sup> if $`E_{max}`$ 30 GeV.

This is of particular importance, since if GRB sources are located at cosmological distances, the high energy tail of the spectrum is affected by the $`\gamma \gamma e^+e^{}`$ interaction of gamma-rays with low energy starlight photons in the intergalactic space. According to Salomon and Stecker (1998), at a distance corresponding to a redshift $`z`$=0.1 the absorption is almost negligible, while at $`z`$=0.5 (1.0) the absorption becomes important for photons of energy E $`>`$ 100 (50) GeV. These values give an idea of the possible maximum energy of the GRBs spectra as a function of their distance, and from Fig.1 one can infer the maximum sensitivity of ARGO-YBJ to detect cosmological GRBs. The minimum observable fluences can be compared with the fluences measured by EGRET in the 1 MeV-1 GeV energy range: $`F10^5÷10^4`$ erg cm<sup>-2</sup> egret (Catelli et al., 1997). Since EGRET spectral slopes $`\alpha `$ are mostly $``$ 2, one could expect fluences of the same order of magnitude at energies above 1 GeV. From Fig.1 one can conclude that ARGO-YBJ could detect GRBs with the same intensity of those observed by EGRET provided that the energy spectrum extends up to few tens of GeVs; the sensitivity increases by a factor $``$10 for spectra extending up to $`E_{max}`$ 200 GeV.