GCN Circular 23474
Subject
GRB 181201A: Swift-XRT afterglow detection
Date
2018-12-01T14:17:02Z (5 years ago)
From
Kim Page at U.of Leicester <klp5@leicester.ac.uk>
K.L. Page (U. Leicester), A.P. Beardmore (U. Leicester), V. D'Elia
(ASDC), A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), S. J. LaPorte
(PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU) and P.A. Evans
(U. Leicester) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team:
Swift-XRT has performed follow-up observations of the INTEGRAL-detected
burst GRB 181201A (Mereghetti et al. GCN Circ. 23469), collecting 5.0
ks of Photon Counting (PC) mode data between T0+14.3 ks and T0+26.4 ks.
Five uncatalogued X-ray sources are detected, of which one ("Source 5")
is above the RASS limit, and is therefore likely the GRB afterglow.
Using 4968 s of PC mode data and 3 UVOT images, we find an enhanced XRT
position (using the XRT-UVOT alignment and matching UVOT field sources
to the USNO-B1 catalogue): RA, Dec = 319.29666, -12.63082 which is
equivalent to:
RA (J2000): 21h 17m 11.20s
Dec(J2000): -12d 37' 51.0"
with an uncertainty of 2.0 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). This
position is 28 arcsec from the INTEGRAL position.
The light curve can be modelled with a power-law decay with a decay
index of alpha=1.44 (+/-0.18).
A spectrum formed from the PC mode data can be fitted with an absorbed
power-law with a photon spectral index of 1.74 (+0.08, -0.07). The
best-fitting absorption column is 6.1 (+2.0, -0.9) x 10^20 cm^-2,
consistent with the Galactic value of 5.2 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 3.8 x 10^-11 (4.2 x
10^-11) erg cm^-2 count^-1.
A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column: 6.1 (+2.0, -0.9) x 10^20 cm^-2
Galactic foreground: 5.2 x 10^20 cm^-2
Excess significance: <1.6 sigma
Photon index: 1.74 (+0.08, -0.07)
If the light curve continues to decay with a power-law decay index of
1.44, the count rate at T+24 hours will be 0.30 count s^-1,
corresponding to an observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux of 1.2 x
10^-11 (1.3 x 10^-11) erg cm^-2 s^-1.
The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00020848.
The results of the full analysis of the XRT observations are available
at http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020848.
This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.