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GCN Circular 22876

Subject
GRB 180630A: Swift-XRT refined Analysis
Date
2018-06-30T21:33:37Z (6 years ago)
From
Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9@leicester.ac.uk>
P.A. Evans (U. Leicester), S.L. Gibson (U. Leicester), Z. Liu (NAOC /
U. Leicester), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASDC), A. Tohuvavohu
(PSU), S. J. LaPorte (PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU) and P. D'Avanzo report on
behalf of the Swift-XRT team:

We have analysed 6.3 ks of XRT data for GRB 180630A (D'Avanzo et al.
GCN Circ. 22872), from 87 s to 29.0 ks after the  BAT trigger. The data
comprise 69 s in Windowed Timing (WT) mode with the remainder in Photon
Counting (PC) mode. The enhanced XRT position for this burst was given
by Beardmore et al. (GCN Circ. 22873).

The light curve can be modelled with a series of power-law decays. The
initial decay index is alpha=3.04 (+0.61, -0.21). At T+155 s  the decay
flattens to an alpha of 0.25 (+0.26, -0.09). The light curve breaks
again at T+659 s to a decay with alpha=0.80 (+0.07, -0.05),  before a
final break at T+24.3 ks s after which the decay index is 4.4 (+3.6,
-2.2).

A spectrum formed from the WT mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index	of 2.91 (+0.21, -0.17). The
best-fitting absorption column is  consistent with the Galactic value
of 1.3 x 10^21 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The PC mode spectrum has
a photon index of 1.64 (+/-0.12) and a best-fitting absorption column
of 1.7 (+0.5, -0.3) x 10^21 cm^-2. The counts to observed (unabsorbed)
0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this spectrum  is 4.3 x
10^-11 (5.1 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1. 

A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column:	     1.7 (+0.5, -0.3) x 10^21 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 1.3 x 10^21 cm^-2
Excess significance: <1.6 sigma
Photon index:	     1.64 (+/-0.12)

If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
4.4, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 4.3 x 10^-4 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 1.8 x
10^-14 (2.2 x 10^-14) erg cm^-2 s^-1.

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00845443.

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