Simulation of the Recording of the Brightest Gamma-ray Burst GRB 221009A by a Segmented Scintillation Detector

Abstract

We have simulated the recording of one of the brightest gamma-ray bursts, GRB 221009A, with a segmented scintillation detector. Based on the analysis of Konus-WIND observations, we reproduced the spectral characteristics of the burst in our simulation. Particular attention was given to the influence of instrumental (dead time and pile-up) effects on the accuracy of reconstructing the energy spectrum and polarization of the emission at extremely high fluxes. Detector segmentation was shown to reduce significantly the distortion of the recorded spectrum. We found that a reliable polarization measurement is possible at fluxes up to \({\sim}10^{-5}\) erg cm\({}^{-2}\) s\({}^{-1}\), whereas at fluxes \({\sim}10^{-2}\) erg cm\({}^{-2}\) s\({}^{-1}\) (the main peak of the burst light curve) a polarization measurement is impossible due to the significant influence of the dead time and pile-up effects.