The GLAST Burst Monitor

The next large NASA mission in the field of gamma-ray astronomy, GLAST, is scheduled for launch in 2007. Aside from the main instrument LAT (Large-Area Telescope), a gamma-ray telescope for the energy range between 20 MeV and > 100 GeV, a secondary instrument, the GLAST burst monitor (GBM), is foreseen. With this monitor one of the key scientific objectives of the mission, the determination of the high-energy behaviour of gamma-ray bursts and transients can be ensured. Its task is to increase the detection rate of gamma-ray bursts for the LAT and to extend the energy range to lower energies (from ∼ 10 keV to ∼ 30 MeV). It will provide real-time burst locations over a wide FoV with sufficient accuracy to allow repointing the GLAST spacecraft. Time-resolved spectra of many bursts recorded with LAT and the burst monitor will allow the investigation of the relation between the keV and the MeV-GeV emission from GRBs over unprecedented seven decades of energy. This will help to advance our understanding of the mechanisms by which gamma-rays are generated in gamma-ray bursts.