GRB 070125
GCN Circular 6186
Subject
GRB 070125: Chandra X-ray Confirmation of Jet Break
Date
2007-03-09T21:18:41Z (19 years ago)
From
S. Bradley Cenko at Caltech <cenko@srl.caltech.edu>
S. B. Cenko, A. M. Soderberg (Caltech), D. A. Frail (NRAO), and D. B. Fox
(Penn State) report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
The Chandra X-ray Observatory + ACIS observed the field of GRB070125
(Hurley et al, GCN 6024) beginning 5 March 2007 21:28 UT for a 30 ks
exposure (mean epoch ~ 39.76 days after the burst). No source is detected
at the location of the optical afterglow (Cenko & Fox, GCN 6028).
Formally, using a circular aperture with 1" diameter, we detect 0.9 +/-
5.0 photons from 0.3-10 keV. Using spectral properties derived from early
XRT observations (Gamma=2.0, nH=8e20; Racusin and Vetere, GCN 6030),
we estimate an upper limit on the afterglow flux of < 2e-15 erg cm^-2
s^-1.
Had the X-ray flux seen by the Swift XRT (Burrows & Racusin, GCN 6181)
continued to decay as a single power-law with index ~ -1.5, we would
expect a flux ~ 5e-15 erg cm^-2 s^-1 at the Chandra epoch (~ 20 Chandra
ACIS-S photons), more than a factor of 2 above this upper limit. We
therefore conclude the X-ray decay has steepened since the last XRT
detection, confirming the jet break seen in the optical light curve
(Mirabal, Halpern, & Thorstensen, GCN 6096; Garnavich et al., GCN 6165).
A plot of the X-ray light curve can be found at:
http://www.srl.caltech.edu/~cenko/public/grb070125_xray.jpg
We would like to thank the entire Chandra X-ray Center staff for their
execution of this observation and the rapid processing of the data.
GCN Circular 6181
Subject
GRB 070125: X-ray light curve analysis
Date
2007-03-08T21:34:34Z (19 years ago)
From
David Burrows at PSU/Swift <dnburrows@gmail.com>
D. N. Burrows and J. Racusin report on behalf of the Swift XRT team:
Garnavich et al. (GCN Circ. 6165) have suggested that the X-ray light
curve of GRB 070125 has a late break to a steep slope, in agreement
with the optical break reported by Mirabel, Halpern & Thorstensen
(GCN 6096) and confirmed by their observations.
We have re-examined the XRT light curve, which extends from ~44 ks to
~1.5 Ms post-burst, and reconfirm our original conclusions. Full
details, including a plot of the X-ray light curve showing several
possible fits of single and broken power laws, are given in GCN
Report 28.3 (http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/reports/report_28_3.pdf). We find:
1) the X-ray light curve is best fit by a broken power law, but with
a break time at 1.35 +/- 0.35 days (90% confidence), not > 4 days as
required by the optical data (Mirabel, Halpern & Thorstensen, GCN
6096). However, this fit, with reduced chi**2=1.6 for 15 degrees of
freedom, is rather poor (P=0.065), due primarily to large residuals
between 100 and 200 ks.
2) a better fit can be obtained under the assumption that there is a
small X-ray flare at about 110 ks. If these data points are
excluded, the remaining X-ray data can be fit by a single power law
of slope 1.57 +/- 0.07 (90% confidence) with reduced chi**2 of 0.82
for 14 degrees of freedom. A broken power law fit to this data set
is slightly worse and has very poor constraints on the fit parameters.
We conclude that we cannot distinguish between a single power law fit
with a small flare at 110 ks, and a broken power law fit with
additional flaring (to account for the poor residuals). Therefore
the X-ray data do not show evidence for a jet break: they are
consistent with a jet break coincident with the optical break, but
are equally consistent with no break at all.
GCN Circular 6165
Subject
GRB 070125, deep late-time optical observation
Date
2007-03-01T22:47:13Z (19 years ago)
From
Peter Garnavich at U of Notre Dame <pgarnavi@nd.edu>
P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), X. Fan, L. Jiang (U Ariz), X. Dai (Ohio State),
O. Kuhn (LBTO), N. Bouche, P. Buschkamp (MPE), P. Smith,
P. Milne, J. Bechtold (U Ariz), K. Z. Stanek, J. Prieto (Ohio State),
R. M. Wagner (LBTO/OSU), J. Rhoads (Ariz State), J. Hill (LBTO/UAz),
A. Baruffolo, C. DeSantis, E. Diolaiti, A. DiPaola, J. Farinato,
A. Fontana, S. Gallozzi, F. Gasparo, E. Giallongo, A. Grazian,
F. Pasian, F. Pedichini, R. Ragazzoni, R. Smareglia, R. Speziali,
V. Testa, E. Vernet (LBC Team/INAF) reprt:
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) imaged the position of the GRB 070125
afterglow (Cenko & Fox, GCN 6028