GCN Circular 18757

K.L. Page (U. Leicester), A. Maselli  (INAF-IASFPA), A. Melandri
(INAF-OAB), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU), D.N.
Burrows (PSU), T.G.R. Roegiers (PSU), C. Pagani (U. Leicester), A.P.
Beardmore (U. Leicester) and D. Kocevski report on behalf of the
Swift-XRT team:

We have analysed 7.4 ks of XRT data for GRB 151229A (Kocevski et al.
GCN Circ. 18745
Not found
 
 
), from 73 s to 32.8 ks after the  BAT trigger. The data
comprise 67 s in Windowed Timing (WT) mode (the first 8 s were taken
while Swift was slewing) with the remainder in Photon Counting (PC)
mode. The enhanced XRT position for this burst was given by Osborne et
al. (GCN Circ. 18750
Not found
 
 
).

The light curve can be modelled with a power-law decay with a decay
index of alpha=0.832 (+/-0.021).

A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index of 2.04 (+0.15, -0.14). The
best-fitting absorption column is  7.2 (+1.1, -1.0) x 10^21 cm^-2, in
excess of the Galactic value of 2.7 x 10^20 cm^-2 (Willingale et al.
2013). The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion
factor deduced from this spectrum  is 4.3 x 10^-11 (7.8 x 10^-11) erg
cm^-2 count^-1. 

A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column:	     7.2 (+1.1, -1.0) x 10^21 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 2.7 x 10^20 cm^-2
Excess significance: 11.4 sigma
Photon index:	     2.04 (+0.15, -0.14)

If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
0.832, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 0.023 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 9.8 x
10^-13 (1.8 x 10^-12) erg cm^-2 s^-1.

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00668689.

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