BurstCube: A CubeSat for Gravitational Wave Counterparts

We present BurstCube, a novel CubeSat that will detect and localize Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs). BurstCube will detect both long GRBs attributed to the collapse of massive stars, and short GRBs that are the result of a binary neutron star merger, which are also predicted to be the counterparts of gravitational wave sources soon to be detectable by advanced LIGO/Virgo, as well as other gamma-ray (10-1000 keV) transients. BurstCube contains 4 CsI scintillators coupled with arrays of compact low-power Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) on a 6U CubeSat incorporating in-house front-end electronics for large-area arrays of SiPMs, off-the-shelf spacecraft components and a straightforward design and implementation. BurstCube will potentially complement existing facilities such as Swift and Fermi in the short term, and provide a means for GRB detection, localization, and characterization in the interim time before the next generation future gamma-ray mission flies, as well as space-qualify SiPMs and test technologies that may be used on the next generation gamma-ray probe or flagship. The ultimate configuration of BurstCube is to have a set of ~10 BurstCubes to provide all-sky coverage to GRBs for substantially lower cost than a full-scale mission.