Gamma Ray Burst Section of the White Paper on the Status and Future of Ground-based TeV Gamma-ray Astronomy

Abstract

This is a report on the findings of the gamma ray burst working group for the white paper on the status and future of TeV gamma-ray astronomy. The white paper is an APS commissioned document, and the overall version has also been released and can be found on astro-ph. This detailed section of the white paper discusses the status of past and current attempts to observe gamma ray bursts at GeV-TeV energies. We concentrate on the potential of future ground-based gamma-ray experiments to observe the highest energy emission ever recorded for GRBs, particularly for those that are nearby and have high Lorentz factors in the GRB jet. It is clear that major advances are possible and that the detection of very high energy emission would have strong implications for GRB models, as well as cosmic ray origin.