10 Future

Each person has their own favorite list of future observational needs. Here is mine:

$\bullet$ We need a high rate (> 100 GRBs yr^-1) of bursts with good locations, in order to change the sociology of ground-based optical and radio observations. This many good GRB positions to follow-up each year would make it possible to propose and carry out GRB afterglow monitoring programs at many medium-to-large aperture telescopes.

$\bullet$ The diversity of GRBs, GRB afterglows, and host galaxies means that we need a large number (> 1000) of good GRB positions in order to be able to study the correlations between these properties. This is important for determining whether or not there are distinct subclasses of bursts, and more than one burst mechanism. Any correlations found will also impose important constraints on burst mechanisms and models.

$\bullet$ We need many rapid (near real time) one arcminute GRB positions in order to determine whether or not significant optical emission accompanies the bursts (Park 1999), and to make it possible to take spectra of the burst afterglows while the afterglows are still bright - and thereby obtain redshifts of the bursts themselves from absorption line systems, and if there are bursts at high redshifts, from the Ly${\alpha}$ break.

$\bullet$ All of the GRBs that BeppoSAX has detected are "long'' bursts. Currently we know nothing about the afterglow properties, the distance scale, and the hosts (if any) of "short'' bursts. Therefore we need good/quick positions for short bursts, in order to determine these properties for short bursts in the same way that BeppoSAX has enabled us to determine these properties for long bursts.

$\bullet$ Currently, there is a largely unexplored gap in our knowledge of the X-ray and optical behavior of burst afterglows of $\sim 10^4 - 10^5$seconds immediately following the bursts, corresponding to the time needed to bring the BeppoSAX NFIs to bear on a burst. We need to fill in this unexplored gap, in order to see if bursts always, often, or rarely join smoothly onto their X-ray and optical afterglows, and to explore the geometry and kinematics of GRB afterglows (Sari 1999).

$\bullet$ We also need to search for variability in the X-ray and optical afterglows. Observations of such variability would impose severe constraints on models, including the widely-discussed relativistic fireball model of burst afterglows (see, e.g., Fenimore 1999).

Acknowledgements

The Rome Workshop provided a feast of observational and theoretical results, and the opportunity to discuss them. On behalf of all of the Workshop participants, I would like to thank Enrico Costa, Luigi Piro, Filippo Fontana, and everyone else who helped to organize this meeting for bringing all of us together and for providing us with such "fine dining.''