Michaela Ďuríšková

arXiv2024

Phenomenology of the dispersion law in three-dimensional quantum space

The concept of a quantum structure underlying space has been proposed for quite some time, yet it has largely eluded direct observation. There is a prevailing notion that the minuscule effects stemming from quantum space could, under certain astronomical conditions, accumulate to an observable magnitude. Typically, these effects are perturbative, limited to the first one or two orders. This study presents a full dispersion law derived from a three-dimensional quantum space model. Our primary focus is investigating the in-vacuo dispersion phenomenon and the threshold anomaly. Furthermore, we briefly explore the implications of additional spatial dimensions within this framework and suggest a way of distinguishing between various theories that agree in the leading order approximation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2024

GRBAlpha and VZLUSAT-2: GRB observations with CubeSats after 3 years of operations

GRBAlpha is a 1U CubeSat launched in March 2021 to a sun-synchronous LEO at an altitude of 550 km to perform an in-orbit demonstration of a novel gamma-ray burst detector developed for CubeSats. VZLUSAT-2 followed ten months later in a similar orbit carrying as a secondary payload a pair of identical detectors as used on the first mission. These instruments detecting gamma-rays in the range of 30-900 keV consist of a 56 cm2 5 mm thin CsI(Tl) scintillator read-out by a row of multi-pixel photon counters (MPPC or SiPM). The scientific motivation is to detect gamma-ray bursts and other HE transient events and serve as a pathfinder for a larger constellation of nanosatellites that could localize these events via triangulation. At the beginning of July 2024, GRBAlpha detected 140 such transients, while VZLUSAT-2 had 83 positive detections, confirmed by larger GRB missions. Almost a hundred of them are identified as gamma-ray bursts, including extremely bright GRB 221009A and GRB 230307A, detected by both satellites. We were able to characterize the degradation of SiPMs in polar orbit and optimize the duty cycle of the detector system also by using SatNOGS radio network for downlink.

astro-ph.HE↗