GCN Circular 17005

M. de Pasquale (INAF-IASFPA), J.A. Kennea (PSU), V. Mangano (PSU), M.C.
Stroh (PSU), J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L. Page (U. Leicester), A.
Maselli  (INAF-IASFPA), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB) and B.P. Gompertz report
on behalf of the Swift-XRT team:

We have analysed 8.0 ks of XRT data for GRB 141031A (Gompertz  et al.
GCN Circ. 16995
Not found
 
 
),  from 102 s to 24.0 ks after the  BAT trigger. The
data comprise 847 s in Windowed Timing (WT) mode with the remainder in
Photon Counting (PC) mode. The enhanced XRT position for this burst was
given by Evans et al. (GCN Circ. 16997
Not found
 
 
).

The light curve can be modelled with  a power-law decay with a decay
index of alpha=1.06 (+/-0.05).

A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index of 1.43 (+0.12, -0.11). The
best-fitting absorption column is  2.44 (+0.64, -0.27) x 10^21 cm^-2,
consistent with the Galactic value of 2.2 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et
al. 2013). The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux
conversion factor deduced from this spectrum  is 5.2 x 10^-11 (6.0 x
10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. 

A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column:	     2.44 (+0.64, -0.27) x 10^21 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 2.2 x 10^21 cm^-2
Excess significance: <1.6 sigma
Photon index:	     1.43 (+0.12, -0.11)

If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
1.06, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 4.0 x 10^-3 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 2.1 x
10^-13 (2.4 x 10^-13) erg cm^-2 s^-1.

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00617110.

This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.