GCN Circular 31590

Igor Andreoni (JSI), Michael Coughlin (UMN), Tomas Ahumada (UMD), Mansi
Kasliwal (Caltech), Daniel Perley (LJMU), Eric Burns (LSU), Mattia Bulla
(OKC), Brad Cenko (NASA/GSFC), Shreya Anand (Caltech), Erik Kool (OKC)


We report the discovery of the fast and red optical transient
ZTF22aaajecp/AT2022cmc
Not found
 
 
 with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF, Bellm et
al. 2019, Graham et al. 2019) at coordinates:

RA = 13:34:43.20 (203.6800149d)
Dec = +33:13:00.44 (33.2167887d)

ZTF22aaajecp was first detected on 2022-02-11 10:42 UT at r=20.73 +- 0.3
mag. The last ZTF upper limit before the first detection was measured on
2022-01-21 09:54 UT. ZTF22aaajecp increased its luminosity to r=19.04 +-
0.16 mag in 23.2 hours, then it faded by 0.8 mag in the following 48 hours.
The latest detection of ZTF22aaajecp occurred on 2022-02-14 09:40 UT,
r=19.84 +- 0.19 mag.

The color of ZTF22aaajecp appears to be red, with g-r~0.25 mag and g-i~0.5
mag at the observed peak on 2022-02-12. The Galactic extinction on the line
of sight is small, with E(B-V)=0.01 mag (Planck Collaboration et al.,
2014). The source is located at a high Galactic latitude of b=78.85 deg.

ZTF22aaajecp does not have any cataloged underlying source in deep Legacy
Survey DR9 images. The fast evolution and red color suggest that
ZTF22aaajecp could be a gamma-ray burst afterglow, but a spectroscopic
confirmation is required to determine the nature of the transient.

ZTF22aaajecp is spatially and temporally consistent with the Fermi-GBM
short GRB 220211A (GBM trigger 666234473); however, it is located several
degrees outside the IPN localization region for this event (Ridnaia et al.
2022; GCN 31584
Not found
 
 
).

Follow-up observations are strongly encouraged.


ZTF22aaajecp was discovered by the ''ZTF Realtime Search and Triggering''
project (ZTFReST; Andreoni & Coughlin et al., 2021) within the ZTF
Collaboration.

Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch and
the 60-inch Telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky
Transient Facility project. ZTF is supported by the National Science
Foundation under Grant No. AST-2034437 and a collaboration including
Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center
at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, Deutsches
Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, the TANGO Consortium of
Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Trinity College Dublin,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and IN2P3, France. Operations are
conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW.