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GCN Circular 18893

Subject
GRB 160119A: Swift detection of a burst
Date
2016-01-19T03:18:51Z (8 years ago)
From
David Palmer at LANL <palmer@lanl.gov>
F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), D. N. Burrows (PSU), J. A. Kennea (PSU),
H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA), K. L. Page (U Leicester) and
D. M. Palmer (LANL) report on behalf of the Swift Team:

At 03:06:08 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 160119A (trigger=671014).  Swift slewed immediately to the burst. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 211.893, +20.474 which is 
   RA(J2000) = 14h 07m 34s
   Dec(J2000) = +20d 28' 28"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve shows low level variability
followed by a peak from T+120 to T+180.  The peak count rate
was ~3000 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~142 sec after the trigger. 

The XRT began observing the field at 03:08:48.0 UT, 159.8 seconds after
the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we find a bright,
fading, uncatalogued X-ray source located at RA, Dec 211.92111,
20.46161 which is equivalent to:
   RA(J2000)  = 14h 07m 41.07s
   Dec(J2000) = +20d 27' 41.8"
with an uncertainty of 3.8 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This
location is 104 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the
BAT error circle. This position may be improved as more data are
received; the latest position is available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/sper. 

A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event
data gives a column density in excess of the Galactic value (3.08 x
10^20 cm^-2, Willingale et al. 2013), with an excess column of 3.4
(+2.60/-1.22) x 10^21 cm^-2 (90% confidence). 

The initial flux in the 0.1 s image was 2.75e-08 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10
keV). 

UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter
starting 168 seconds after the BAT trigger. No credible afterglow candidate has
been found in the initial data products. The 2.7'x2.7' sub-image covers 100% of
the XRT error circle. The typical 3-sigma upper limit has been about 19.6 mag. 
The 8'x8' region for the list of sources generated on-board covers 100% of the
XRT error circle. The list of sources is typically complete to about 18 mag. No
correction has been made for the expected extinction corresponding to E(B-V) of
0.03. 

Burst Advocate for this burst is F. E. Marshall (marshall AT milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov). 
Please contact the BA by email if you require additional information
regarding Swift followup of this burst. In extremely urgent cases, after
trying the Burst Advocate, you can contact the Swift PI by phone (see
Swift TOO web site for information: http://www.swift.psu.edu/too.html.)
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