Super-Lotis/Lotis/Lite: Prompt Grb Followup Experiments

LOTIS (Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System) and Super-LOTIS are automatic telescope systems that measure very prompt optical emission occurring within seconds of the gamma-ray energy release during a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB). Unlike hour-to-days delayed afterglow measurements, very early measurements will contain information about the GRB progenitor. To accomplish this, we developed and have been operating automated telescopes that rapidly image GRB coordinate error boxes in response to triggers distributed by the GRB Coordinate Distribution Network (GCN). LOTIS, located in California, consists of 4 cameras each with a different astronomical filter (B, V, R, open) that can respond to GRB triggers within 5 s. Super-LOTIS can point to any part of the sky within 30 s upon receipt of a GCN trigger and its sensitivity is as deep as V=17similar to19 depending on the integration times. Since the shutdown of the CGRO, there has been no real-time GRB triggers that enable the LOTIS systems to measure real-time GRB counterpart fluxes as of May 2001. This paper describes performance of these systems. We also present our plan to replace the current optical CCD camera on the Super-LOTIS to a near infrared camera to be able to probe dusty GRB environment.