GCN Circular 40504
Subject
GRB 250520A: Gemini-South optical observations
Date
2025-05-20T16:07:09Z (18 days ago)
From
Jillian Rastinejad at Northwestern Univ. <jillianrastinejad2024@u.northwestern.edu>
Via
email
Jillian Rastinejad, Wen-fai Fong, and Charlie Kilpatrick (Northwestern) report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the location of the short-duration GRB 250520A (Eyles-Ferris et al., GCN 40491) with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) mounted on Gemini-South under Program GS-2025A-Q-112 (PI: Fong). We obtained 15x120-sec imaging in i-band starting at 2025-05-20 03:45:39.2 UT (1.06 hrs post-burst), at a median airmass of 1.8 and seeing of 0.7''.
We detect a clear source coincident with the candidate optical counterpart discovered by SVOM (Xin et al., GCN 40500) that is within the enhanced XRT localization (Goad et al., GCN 40494). Calibrated to Pan-STARRS DR2 (Flewelling et al., 2020, ApJS, 251, 7), we measure a magnitude for this source of i = 22.4 +/- 0.2 AB mag. This value does not include a correction for Galactic extinction, which is significant (A_V = 2.1 mag; Schlafly and Finkbeiner 2011, ApJ, 737, 103).
The brightness of this source is consistent with reported upper limits (Brivio et al. GCN 40502, Pereyra et al., GCN 40499, Becerra et al. GCN 40498, Kumar et al. GCN 40493). Correcting our measurement and the value reported by SVOM at 2.14 hours post-burst (VT_R = 23.2 +/- 0.2 mag; Xin et al., GCN 40500) for Galactic extinction, we find no clear evidence for fading within the uncertainties.
At or very close to the position of the SVOM and Gemini source, there appears to be a faint source in i- and z-band archival PS1 imaging (Flewelling et al., 2020, ApJS, 251, 7), though more precise astrometry is needed to determine their relative positions. However, forced photometry near the position of the SVOM source (Xin et al., GCN 40500) in the PS1 images yields 3-sigma upper limits on underlying emission of i > 22.2 and z > 21.7 AB mag, uncorrected for extinction. Given that the PS1 i-band limit is shallower than our source magnitude, it is difficult to tell whether the faint source was pre-existing or is the afterglow of GRB 250520A.
Further observations are planned to assess the variability of the source and others in the field. We thank the Gemini staff for the rapid scheduling and execution of these observations.