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GCN Circular 32306

Subject
GRB 220701A: Swift detection of a burst
Date
2022-07-01T05:12:33Z (2 years ago)
From
Kim Page at U.of Leicester <kimlpage1978@gmail.com>
P. A. Evans (U Leicester), S. Dichiara (PSU), H. A. Krimm (NSF),
K. L. Page (U Leicester), T. M. Parsotan (GSFC/UMBC/CRESSTII) and
M. H. Siegel (PSU) report on behalf of the Neil Gehrels Swift
Observatory Team:

At 04:52:58 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 220701A (trigger=1114034).  Swift slewed immediately to the burst. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 242.478, +55.420 which is 
   RA(J2000) = 16h 09m 55s
   Dec(J2000) = +55d 25' 14"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve showed a double-peaked
structure with a duration of about 16 sec.  The peak count rate
was ~1000 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~0 sec after the trigger. 

The XRT began observing the field at 04:56:06.0 UT, 187.9 seconds after
the BAT trigger. Using promptly downlinked data we find an uncatalogued
X-ray source located at RA, Dec 242.50589, 55.40679 which is equivalent
to:
   RA(J2000)  = 16h 10m 01.41s
   Dec(J2000) = +55d 24' 24.4"
with an uncertainty of 4.2 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This
location is 74 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 https://www.swift.ac.uk/sper.  We
cannot determine whether the source is fading at the present time. 

A power-law fit to a spectrum formed from promptly downlinked event
data gives a column density consistent with the Galactic value of 1.03
x 10^20 cm^-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). 

UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter
starting 175 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 85% 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
0.008. 

Burst Advocate for this burst is P. A. Evans (pae9 AT leicester.ac.uk). 
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/)
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