GRB 070311
GCN Circular 6245
Subject
GRB 070311, deep optical photometry
Date
2007-04-04T19:37:04Z (19 years ago)
From
Peter Garnavich at U of Notre Dame <pgarnavi@nd.edu>
P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), X. Dai, R. Pogge (Ohio State),
J. Hill (LBTO/UAz), X. Fan (U Ariz), J. Prieto, K. Z. Stanek (Ohio State),
R. M. Wagner (LBTO/OSU), J. Rhoads (Ariz State), E. Egami, J. Bechtold,
S. Herbert-Fort (U Ariz) report:
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) imaged the position of the GRB 070311
afterglow (Mereghetti et al, GCN 6189; Covino et al. GCN 6190;
Dai et al. GCN 6219) with the LBC-blue CCD camera
(http//lbc.mporzio.astro.it) and 8.4-m SX mirror on 2007 March 20.13 (UT).
Fifteen dithered, 200 second exposures were obtained with the
Sloan-r filter in 0.8" seeing. After combining the images, the
afterglow is still clearly detected. Using the same calibration as
Dai et al. (GCN 6219), we estimate the brightness of the afterglow
to be R2=25.42+/-0.12 mag at 9.0 days after the burst.
The new LBT image shows evidence of a faint host galaxy 1.8" to
the west of the GRB afterglow. After subtracting the afterglow
using DAOPHOT (Stetson 1987, PASP, 99, 191) we estimate the host
brightness at R2=25.5+/-0.2 mag in a 1.1" radius aperture.
The LBT photometry 9 days after the burst shows a continued
decay from the optical flare, but the rate of fading is not as
steep. The afterglow may be approaching a more typical
post-break decay index. The light curve of 070311 is available at:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~xinyu/grb/070311.jpg
and uses photometry from GCNs 6198 (Wren et al. 2007), 6195
(Halpern & Armstrong 2007), 6199 (Halpern & Armstrong 2007), 6203 (Halpern
& Armstrong 2007), 6204 (Greco et al. 2007), 6206 (Kann et al. 2007), 6208
(Halpern & Armstrong 2007), 6219 (Dai et al. 2007).
The LBT is an international collaboration among institutions in the
United States, Italy and Germany. The LBT Corporation partners are:
* The University of Arizona on behalf of the Arizona university system
* Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Italy
* LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Germany, representing the Max Planck
Society, the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University
* The Ohio State University
* The Research Corporation, on behalf of The University of Notre Dame,
University of Minnesota and University of Virginia
This message may be cited.
GCN Circular 6219
Subject
GRB 070311, deep optical photometry
Date
2007-03-20T19:00:21Z (19 years ago)
From
Peter Garnavich at U of Notre Dame <pgarnavi@nd.edu>
X. Dai (Ohio State), P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), R. Pogge (Ohio State),
J. Hill (LBTO/UAz), X. Fan (U Ariz), J. Prieto, K. Z. Stanek (Ohio State),
R. M. Wagner (LBTO/OSU), J. Rhoads (Ariz State), E. Egami, J. Bechtold,
S. Herbert-Fort (UAz) report:
The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) imaged the position of the GRB 070311
afterglow (Mereghetti et al, GCN 6189; Covino et al. GCN 6190) with the
LBC-blue CCD camera (http//lbc.mporzio.astro.it) and 8.4-m SX mirror on
2007 March 17.14 (UT). Ten dithered, 200 second exposures were obtained
with the Sloan-r filter in 0.65" seeing. After combining the images, the
afterglow is clearly detected. No obvious GRB host galaxy is visible. The
field is filled with clouds of faint emission due to the low Galactic
latitude of the region.
The comparison star used by Halpern & Armstrong (GCN 6195; star "A"
with USNO-B1.0 R2=16.67 mag) is heavily saturated in the LBT data,
so we obtained short exposure images of the field with LBC-blue to
calibrate a fainter star ("B") at 5:50:10.341, 03:23:02.58 (J2000).
The difference in brightness between star A and B is 2.62+/-0.01 mag.
in Sloan-r and this is confirmed with R-band images taken at MDM
(E. Armstrong, private communication). From point-spread-function fitting
photometry, the afterglow is 5.44+/-0.06 mag fainter than comparison
star B or at a brightness of R2=16.67+2.62+5.44= 24.73+/-0.06 mag.
The brightness of the afterglow 6.0 days after the GRB suggests that it
has continued a very steep decline after its optical flare
(Halpern & Armstrong GCN 6203). The afterglow has not resumed the shallow
decay it followed on the first day after the GRB. A late flare
occurring just before the break resembles GRB 000301c (Garnavich, Loeb &
Stanek 2000, ApJ, 544, 11; Rhoads & Fruchter 2001, ApJ 546, 117)
and GRB 060526 (Dai et al. 2006, astro-ph/0609269).
The light curve of 070311 is available at:
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~xinyu/grb/070311.jpg
and uses photometry from GCNs 6198 (Wren et al. 2007), 6195
(Halpern & Armstrong 2007), 6199 (Halpern & Armstrong 2007), 6203 (Halpern
& Armstrong 2007), 6204 (Greco et al. 2007), 6206 (Kann et al. 2007), 6208
(Halpern & Armstrong 2007).
The LBT image is available at:
http://www.nd.edu/~pgarnavi/grb070311/LBT_grb070311.jpg
and a wide-field view is at:
http://www.nd.edu/~pgarnavi/grb070311/LBT_grb070311_clr.jpg
We thank Eve Armstrong for providing MDM images to calibrate
fainter comparison stars.
The LBT is an international collaboration between institutions in the
U.S.A., Italy and Germany. LBT Corporation partners are The Universities
of Arizona; Italy's Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica; Germany's LBT
Beteiligungsgesellschaft representing the Max-Planck Society, the
Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, and Heidelberg University; The Ohio State
University and The Research Corporation, which represents The
University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota and University of
Virginia.
This message may be cited.
GCN Circular 6209
Subject
GRB 070311: Late Central Engine Activity Optical Flare??
Date
2007-03-15T06:54:08Z (19 years ago)
From
Alexander Kann at TLS Tautenburg <kann@tls-tautenburg.de>
D. A. Kann (TLS Tautenburg) reports:
I wish to point out the possibility of the strong optical rebrightening
(Halpern & Armstrong, GCN 6203) of the afterglow of GRB 070311
(Mereghetti et al., GCN 6189) being due to a very late reactivation of the
central engine.
Taking R Band detections (Wren et al., GCN 6198; Halpern & Armstrong, GCN
6195, GCN 6199, GCN 6203, GCN 6208; Greco et al., GCN 6204, Kann, Filgas
& Hoegner, GCN 6206), I find that the first three data points (from RAPTOR
and MDM, up to a day after the GRB) are already not fit well by a single
power law (alpha = 0.67, chi^2/d.o.f. = 30). Fitting only the first two
points from the first hour, I find alpha = 1, and a peak magnitude of the
rebrightening of at least 3.34 magnitudes above the extrapolation of the
early decay.
This situation is similar to the powerful rebrightening seen for GRB
050721 (Antonelli et al., A&A, 456, 509).
Fitting only the data points after the peak of the rebrightening (beyond
2.7 days) I find alpha = 3.17 +/- 0.11, which is steeper than the typical
alpha_2 = p decay seen for post-jet-break afterglows.
On the other hand, the situation is very similar to the giant X-ray flares
seen in Swift afterglows (e.g. Burrows et al., Science, 309, 1833), which
also often exhibit hard-to-soft evolution. Happening two days after the
GRB, one could expect such a giant flare to have a peak energy in the
optical range. There is also possibly a contemporaneous flare followed by
a steep decay detected in the X-rays, as can be seen in the light curve
posted on Nat Butler's page:
http://astro.berkeley.edu/~nat/swift/00020052/bat_xrt.jpg
While this is not conclusive evidence that this flare is due to late
central engine activity, further deep optical monitoring of this burst is
strongly warranted.
I thank Jules Halpern and Nat Butler for discussions.
This message may be cited.
GCN Circular 6208
Subject
GRB 070311: MDM Optical Monitoring
Date
2007-03-15T05:43:48Z (19 years ago)
From
Jules Halpern at Columbia U. <jules@astro.columbia.edu>
J. P. Halpern & E. Armstrong (Columbia U.) report on behalf
of the MDM Observatory GRB follow-up team:
"We observed the afterglow of INTEGRAL GRB 070311 in the
R band on the fourth and fifth consecutive nights using
the MDM 1.3m telescope. The new results are summarized
as follows (using the comparison star from GCN 6195):
-----------------------------------------
Date(UT) t-t0(days) Exposure R(mag) +/-
-----------------------------------------
Mar 14.15 3.07 7x600s 22.65 0.07
Mar 15.14 4.06 9x600s 23.62 0.13
-----------------------------------------
These magnitudes are in agreement with observations of
Greco et al. (GCN 6204) and Kann, Filgas, & Hoegner
GCN (6206), which together show that the rebrightening
we reported in GCN 6203 peaked on day 2. The afterglow
is now fading rapidly.
The lastest MDM images are posted at
http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~jules/grb/070311/
This message may be cited"
GCN Circular 6207
Subject
VLA observation of GRB 070311
Date
2007-03-15T05:41:53Z (19 years ago)
From
Poonam Chandra at U Virginia/NRAO <pc8s@virginia.edu>
Poonam Chandra (NRAO/UVA) and Dale A. Frail (NRAO) report on
behalf of the Caltech-NRAO-Carnegie GRB Collaboration:
"We used the Very Large Array to observe the field of view toward GRB
070311 (GCN 6191) at a frequency of 8.46 GHz on 2007 March 15th at 4.23
UT. The GRB is undetected and the peak radio flux at the SWIFT-XRT
position (GCN 6192) is 21+/-51 uJy.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National
Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated
Universities, Inc."
GCN Circular 6206
Subject
GRB 070311: Tautenburg sees afterglow fading
Date
2007-03-14T22:09:44Z (19 years ago)
From
Alexander Kann at TLS Tautenburg <kann@tls-tautenburg.de>
D. A. Kann, R. Filgas & C. Hoegner (TLS Tautenburg) report:
We observed the position of the optical/NIR afterglow (Covino et al., GCN
6190