A Multi-Mission Detection Framework for High-Energy Transients: Application to a 13-year Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT Sample
Abstract
The detection of faint high-energy transients is becoming increasingly important in time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy, particularly for identifying electromagnetic counterparts to binary neutron star mergers, high-energy neutrino events, and other weak transient phenomena. At present, the sensitivity of gamma-ray and hard X-ray searches is often limited by the detection threshold of individual instruments, leaving a population of faint transients inaccessible to single-mission analyses. To address this limitation, we develop a joint detection framework that combines trigger information from multiple detectors and assigns each candidate a joint association probability, pjoint, as a function of the individual detector signal-to-noise ratios. We apply this framework to archival Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT rates data from 2013-2025. The method effectively separates coincident signals from accidental background associations, suppressing inconsistent coincidences while enhancing the significance of faint events observed by both instruments. We find that, under optimal conditions, a two-mission search can increase the accessible volume for short gamma-ray bursts by up to 60%. This framework provides a practical foundation for generalized multi-mission searches, enabling more sensitive exploration of the faint high-energy transient sky and improving the prospects for future multi-messenger discoveries.
Related
- Search for high-energy neutrinos from Einstein Probe detected Fast X-ray Transients using 14 years of IceCube muon track data
- A simulator of the MAJIS instrument onboard the JUICE mission: description and application to operational and scientific cases
- Microbial Methanogenesis on Mars: A Life Detection Target for an MLE-Type Mission and Future Human Exploration
- The Wavelet Detection Filter: a real time unmodeled pipeline for gravitational wave transients, ranking coincidences with a graph neural network
- Photometric classification and out-of-taxonomy detection of ZTF transients with FLARE
BibTeX
@misc{perera2026multimission,
title = {{A Multi-Mission Detection Framework for High-Energy Transients: Application to a 13-year Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT Sample}},
author = {Ariel Perera and Barak Zackay and Tejaswi Venumadhav},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25672},
eprint = {2609.25672},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25672},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - A Multi-Mission Detection Framework for High-Energy Transients: Application to a 13-year Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT Sample
AU - Ariel Perera
AU - Barak Zackay
AU - Tejaswi Venumadhav
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25672
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25672
AB - The detection of faint high-energy transients is becoming increasingly important in time-domain and multi-messenger astronomy, particularly for identifying electromagnetic counterparts to binary neutron star mergers, high-energy neutrino events, and other weak transient phenomena. At present, the sensitivity of gamma-ray and hard X-ray searches is often limited by the detection threshold of individual instruments, leaving a population of faint transients inaccessible to single-mission analyses. To address this limitation, we develop a joint detection framework that combines trigger information from multiple detectors and assigns each candidate a joint association probability, p_joint, as a function of the individual detector signal-to-noise ratios. We apply this framework to archival Fermi/GBM and Swift/BAT rates data from 2013-2025. The method effectively separates coincident signals from accidental background associations, suppressing inconsistent coincidences while enhancing the significance of faint events observed by both instruments. We find that, under optimal conditions, a two-mission search can increase the accessible volume for short gamma-ray bursts by up to 60%. This framework provides a practical foundation for generalized multi-mission searches, enabling more sensitive exploration of the faint high-energy transient sky and improving the prospects for future multi-messenger discoveries.
ER -