GCN Circular 8457

M. Stamatikos (NASA/ORAU), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC),
N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC), N. P. M. Kuin (MSSL),
V. La Parola (INAF-IASFPA), C. B. Markwardt (CRESST/GSFC/UMD),
D. M. Palmer (LANL) and P. Romano (INAF-IASFPA) report on behalf of
the Swift Team:

At 11:46:31 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 081101 (trigger=333320).  Swift did not slew because 
of the low merit value assignment because of the chance spatial coincidence
with the A0620-00 blackhole candidate source. 
The BAT on-board calculated location is 
RA, Dec 95.826, -0.082 which is 
   RA(J2000)  =  06h 23m 18s
   Dec(J2000) = -00d 04' 55"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including 
systematic uncertainty).  The BAT light curve shows a single hard spike
with a duration of less than 128 msec.  The peak count rate
was ~7000 counts/sec (15-350 keV), at ~0 sec after the trigger. 
We can not rule out that this was from A0620-00, although the position 
is a very unlikely 18 arcmin away.  Thus, we believe this to be a gamma-ray
burst, or possibly a new SGR (although the spectrum is harder than typical
SGR bursts). 

Burst Advocate for this burst is M. Stamatikos (michael AT milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov). 
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/too.html.)