Nonthermal optical transients from relativistic fireballs

A general upper bound is derived on the total energy in incoherent nonthermal transients at frequency nu from relativistic fireballs with bulk Lorentz factors gamma and observed duration Deltat, and shown to be about 10(-2)[gammanuDeltat](3) ergs. It is suggested that detection in the optical can be achieved with the next generation of ground based gamma ray telescopes and/or small optical telescopes. Phenomena within the Galaxy such as accretion disk flares and neutron star magnetospheric discharges might be discovered in this way.