Search for Gamma Ray Bursts with the ARGO-YBJ Detector in Shower Mode

B. Bartoli, P. Bernardini, X. J. Bi, Z. Cao, S. Catalanotti, S. Z. Chen, T. L. Chen, S. W. Cui, B. Z. Dai, A. D Amone, Danzeng Luobu, I. De Mitri, B. D Ettorre Piazzoli, T. Di Girolamo, G. Di Sciascio, C. F. Feng, Zhaoyang Feng, Zhenyong Feng, W. Gao, Q. B. Gou, Y. Q. Guo, H. H. He, Haibing Hu, Hongbo Hu, M. Iacovacci, R. Iuppa, H. Y. Jia, Labaci Ren, H. J. Li, C. Liu, J. Liu, M. Y. Liu, H. Lu, L. L. Ma, X. H. Ma, G. Mancarella, S. M. Mari, G. Marsella, S. Mastroianni, P. Montini, C. C. Ning, L. Perrone, P. Pistilli, P. Salvini, R. Santonico, P. R. Shen, X. D. Sheng, F. Shi, A. Surdo, Y. H. Tan, P. Vallania, S. Vernetto, C. Vigorito, H. Wang, C. Y. Wu, H. R. Wu, L. Xue, Q. Y. Yang, X. C. Yang, Z. G. Yao, A. F. Yuan, M. Zha, H. M. Zhang, L. Zhang, X. Y. Zhang, Y. Zhang, J. Zhao, Zhaxici Ren, Zhaxisang Zhu, X. X. Zhou, F. R. Zhu, Q. Q. Zhu

Published 2017-03-23Version 1

The ARGO-YBJ detector, located at the Yangbajing Cosmic Ray Laboratory (4300 m a. s. l., Tibet, China), was a full coverage air shower array dedicated to gamma ray astronomy and cosmic ray studies. The wide field of view (~ 2 sr) and high duty cycle (> 86%), made ARGO-YBJ suitable to search for short and unexpected gamma ray emissions like gamma ray bursts (GRBs). Between 2007 November 6 and 2013 February 7, 156 satellite-triggered GRBs (24 of them with known redshift) occurred within the ARGO-YBJ field of view. A search for possible emission associated to these GRBs has been made in the two energy ranges 10-100 GeV and 10-1000 GeV. No significant excess has been found in time coincidence with the satellite detections nor in a time window of one hour after the bursts. Taking into account the EBL absorption, upper limits to the energy fluence at 99% of confidence level have been evaluated,with values ranging from ~ 10-5 erg cm-2 to ~10-1 erg cm-2.