The rapid acquisition of positions by the upcoming Swift satellite will allow the monitoring for X-ray lines in GRB afterglows at much earlier epochs than was previously feasible. We calculate the possible significance levels of iron line detections as a function of source redshift and observing time after the trigger, for the Swift XRT, Chandra ACIS and XMM Epic detectors. For bursts with stan...

SWIFT bursts appear to be more distant than previous bursts. We present the Boer & Gendre relation that link redshift and afterglow luminosities. Taking advantage of the XMMNewton, Chandra and BeppoSAX catalogs, and using this relation, we have investigated the redshift distribution of GRBs. We find that XMM burst sources with unknown redshift appear to be more distant than those with a known r...

In the search for robust, accurate, and highly efficient financial option valuation techniques, we here present the SWIFT method (Shannon wavelets inverse Fourier technique), based on Shannon wavelets. SWIFT comes with control over approximation errors made by means of sharp quantitative error bounds. The nature of the local Shannon wavelets basis enables us to adaptively determine the proper s...

The dependence of Swift’s detection sensitivity on a burst’s temporal and spectral properties shapes the detected burst population. Using simplified models of the detector hardware and the burst trigger system I find that Swift is more sensitive to long, soft bursts than CGRO’s BATSE, a reference detector because of the large burst database it accumulated. Thus Swift has increased sensitivity i...

We introduce SWiFT, a toolkit for building adaptive system software using a control-theoretic approach. SWiFT allows systematic implementation of feedback-control mechanisms. It also provides a framework for composing simple feedback mechanisms that operate within limited domains, and for dynamically reconfiguring them. This composition allows the application to adapt efficiently across a wide ...

In the search for robust, accurate, and highly efficient financial option valuation techniques, we here present the SWIFT method (Shannon wavelets inverse Fourier technique), based on Shannon wavelets. SWIFT comes with control over approximation errors made by means of sharp quantitative error bounds. The nature of the local Shannon wavelets basis enables us to adaptively determine the proper s...

In the search for robust, accurate, and highly efficient financial option valuation techniques, we here present the SWIFT method (Shannon wavelets inverse Fourier technique), based on Shannon wavelets. SWIFT comes with control over approximation errors made by means of sharp quantitative error bounds. The nature of the local Shannon wavelets basis enables us to adaptively determine the proper s...

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are unique probes of the cosmic star formation history and the state of the intergalactic medium up to the redshifts of the first stars. In particular, the ongoing Swift mission might be the first observatory to detect individual Population III stars, provided that the massive, metal-free stars were able to trigger GRBs. Swift will empirically constrain the redshift at w...