I belong to the LAGO collaboration. We want to measure Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) with photomultipliers (PMTs) inside water in plastic bags on top of mountains; the Mexican section in Sierra Negra. GRBs come from above directly towards the water; Cherenkov light is produced when charges are produced in the atmosphere and water. This light and charged particles, go directly to the PMTs at the bottom of the bag. The bags are designed to stop other light from leaking in. The whole thing is inside huge metal cylindrical containers. I just saw one yesterday. Seven meters wide and almost three meters tall, with tons of water in.
Given that we are on the surface of the Earth, albeit at a high altitude, we can put tons of water there. This is someting Fermi LAT cannot do.
As the energy of the GRBs increases, lucky for us, the number of them decreases, otherwise we wouldn't be here. Therefore a tiny surface in space, with little matter, won't collect the highest energy rays. We expect to get above 100 GeV GRBs.
The question now is: What does theory predict?. I believe that given the huge energies, and likely big distances from the sources, that we have a way to study the vacuum.
A new proposal for Quantum Gravity, may help our searches. Horava-Lifshitz Gravity does have implications for Dark Energy.
We are studying this.
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