REM telescope, a robotic facility to monitor the prompt afterglow of Gamma Ray Bursts

Abstract

Observations of the prompt afterglow of Gamma Ray Burst events are unanimously considered of paramount importance for GRB science and cosmology. Such observations at NIR wavelengths are even more promising allowing one to monitor high-z Ly-α absorbed bursts as well as events occurring in dusty star-forming regions. In these pages we present REM (Rapid Eye Mount), a fully robotized fast slewing telescope equipped with a high throughput NIR (Z, J, H, K) camera dedicated to detecting the prompt IR afterglow. REM can discover objects at extremely high redshift and trigger large telescopes to observe them. The REM telescope will simultaneously feed ROSS (REM Optical Slitless spectrograph) via a dichroic. ROSS will intensively monitor the prompt optical continuum of GRB afterglows. The synergy between the REM-IR camera and the Ross spectrograph makes REM a powerful observing tool for any kind of fast transient phenomena. Beside its ambitious scientific goals, REM is also technically challenging since it represent the first attempt to locate a NIR camera on a small telescope providing, with ROSS, unprecedented simultaneous wavelength coverage on a telescope of this size.