This proposal is to support the research program in gamma-ray astronomy of Professor Brenda L. Dingus at the University of Utah. The two elements of the program are (1) a continuation of work on the Milagro ground-based detector, and (2) to begin work on GLAST, which is a satellite detector expected to be launched in 2005 that is designed to be 50 times as sensitive as the previous EGRET detector. The Milagro detector became operational in October 1998. The Cerenkov detector will be useful both to calibrate the energy and angular resolution of Milagro and to measure the cosmic-ray composition. Dr. Dingus is also interested in planning and testing the GLAST design, in particular regarding gamma-ray bursts which impact all subsystems due to their extremely bright intensity, thus tightening the requirements on instrument dead-time while reducing the requirements on background rejection.
