GRB 110328A
GCN Circular 11823
Subject
GRB 110328A: Swift detection of a burst
Date
2011-03-28T13:32:29Z (14 years ago)
From
Scott Barthelmy at NASA/GSFC <scott@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov>
J. R. Cummings (NASA/UMBC), S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC),
A. P. Beardmore (U Leicester), D. N. Burrows (PSU),
S. Campana (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASDC), P. A. Evans (U Leicester),
N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC), J. M. Gelbord (PSU), C. Guidorzi (U Ferrara),
S. T. Holland (CRESST/USRA/GSFC), E. A. Hoversten (PSU),
J. A. Kennea (PSU), H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA),
O. M. Littlejohns (U Leicester), R. Margutti (INAF-OAB),
F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB),
C. Pagani (U Leicester), K. L. Page (U Leicester),
D. M. Palmer (LANL), P. Romano (INAF-IASFPA), M. H. Siegel (PSU),
E. Sonbas (GSFC/USRA/Adiyaman Univ.), R. L. C. Starling (U Leicester),
G. Stratta (ASDC), G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB) and
E. Troja (NASA/GSFC/ORAU) report on behalf of the Swift Team:
At 12:57:45 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and
located GRB 110328A (trigger=450158). Swift slewed immediately to the burst.
The BAT on-board calculated location is
RA, Dec 251.233, +57.590 which is
RA(J2000) = 16h 44m 56s
Dec(J2000) = +57d 35' 25"
with an uncertainty of 3 arcmin (radius, 90% containment, including
systematic uncertainty). As is typical for 20-min long image triggers,
the BAT lightcurve does not show anything significant.
The XRT began observing the field at 13:22:19.8 UT, 1474.6 seconds
after the BAT trigger. XRT found a bright, uncatalogued X-ray source
located at RA, Dec 251.2054, +57.5808 which is equivalent to:
RA(J2000) = 16h 44m 49.29s
Dec(J2000) = +57d 34' 50.8"
with an uncertainty of 6.3 arcseconds (radius, 90% containment). This
location is 62 arcseconds from the BAT onboard position, within the BAT
error circle. No event data are yet available to determine the column
density using X-ray spectroscopy.
UVOT took a finding chart exposure of 150 seconds with the White filter
starting 1482 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
100% 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 0.02.
Burst Advocate for this burst is J. R. Cummings (jayc 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.)
GCN Circular 11824
Subject
GRB 110328A: a second trigger, probably a hard X-ray transient (Swift J164449.3+573451)
Date
2011-03-28T14:33:10Z (14 years ago)
From
Scott Barthelmy at NASA/GSFC <scott@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov>
S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), W. H. Baumgartner (GSFC/UMBC),
A. P. Beardmore (U Leicester), D. N. Burrows (PSU),
J. R. Cummings (NASA/UMBC), N. Gehrels (NASA/GSFC),
J. M. Gelbord (PSU), S. T. Holland (CRESST/USRA/GSFC),
E. A. Hoversten (PSU), H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA),
F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), C. Pagani (U Leicester),
K. L. Page (U Leicester), T. Sakamoto (NASA/UMBC),
C. J. Saxton (UCL-MSSL), E. Sonbas (GSFC/USRA/Adiyaman Univ.),
R. L. C. Starling (U Leicester), M. C. Stroh (PSU) and
C. A. Swenson (PSU) report on behalf of the Swift Team:
At 13:40:41 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) re-triggered on
what we are tentatively calling GRB 110328A (trigger=450161).
The BAT on-board calculated location is consistent with the coordinates
reported for GRB 110328A (GCN Circ 11823; Cummings et al).
Both this trigger and the earlier trigger (450158) were image triggers,
so the light curves do not show any significant features. The current
trigger was on the rise to the SAA. The source is brightening.
It is quite rare for BAT to trigger a second time on a GRB, so this
is either an unusually long GRB, GRB 110328A, or a new galactic transient,
Swift J164449.3+573451. The galactic coordinates are longitude=86.71,
latitude=+39.44.
We note that the XRT was in Windowed Timing mode during the entire
previous observing window, indicating that the X-ray counterpart
was quite bright (> 10 cps). This also suggests either a very
long-lived GRB or a galactic transient.
We encourage observations at other wavelengths to help determine
the nature of this object.
GCN Circular 11826
Subject
GRB 110328A: Enhanced Swift-XRT position
Date
2011-03-28T18:31:56Z (14 years ago)
From
Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9@star.le.ac.uk>
J.P. Osborne, A.P. Beardmore, P.A. Evans and M.R. Goad (U. Leicester)
report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team.
Using 2353 s of XRT Photon Counting mode data and 5 UVOT
images for GRB 110328A, we find an astrometrically corrected X-ray
position (using the XRT-UVOT alignment and matching UVOT field sources
to the USNO-B1 catalogue): RA, Dec = 251.20787, +57.58334 which is equivalent
to:
RA (J2000): 16h 44m 49.89s
Dec (J2000): +57d 35' 00.0"
with an uncertainty of 1.7 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence).
This position may be improved as more data are received. The latest
position can be viewed at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_positions. Position
enhancement is described by Goad et al. (2007, A&A, 476, 1401) and Evans
et al. (2009, MNRAS, 397, 1177).
This circular was automatically generated, and is an official product of the
Swift-XRT team.
GCN Circular 11827
Subject
GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451: PTF Quiescent Optical Counterpart
Date
2011-03-28T21:23:00Z (14 years ago)
From
S. Bradley Cenko at Caltech <cenko@srl.caltech.edu>
S. B. Cenko (UC Berkeley), P. E. Nugent (LBNL / UC Berkeley), Derek B. Fox
(Penn State), E. O. Ofek and M. M. Kasliwal (Caltech) report on behalf of
a larger collaboration:
As part of the Palomar Transient Factory, we have obtained pre-outburst
optical (R-band) imaging of the field of the high-energy transient source
GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451 (GCNs 11823, 11824) with the Palomar
48-inch Oschin Schmidt telescope over the time period from 2009 May to
2010 October. In a stacked frame of all available data, we find a faint,
unresolved source at location (J2000.0):
RA: 16:44:49.97 Dec: +57:34:59.7
The astrometric uncertainty associated with this position is ~ 150 mas
in each coordinate (based on the USNO-B1 catalog). This is consistent
with the enhanced XRT position (GCN 11826), and is therefore likely to be
associated with the high-energy transient. The detection of such a
relatively bright optical counterpart strongly disfavors a cosmological
long-duration GRB, and instead suggests that Swift J164449.3+573451 is
more likely a new Galactic transient source (GCN 11824, ATEL 3242).
In attempting to estimate the brightness of this object, we find that
nearby calibration stars from the USNO-B catalog are likely to be
inaccurate (resulting in limits significantly deeper than our system can
achieve). Based on past observations of other fields, we estimate the
brightness of the counterpart to be R ~ 22, although we caution that
this estimate may suffer from significant uncertainty.
GCN Circular 11829
Subject
GRB 110328A/ Swift J164449.3+573451 : Xinglong TNT Upper limit
Date
2011-03-29T01:44:00Z (14 years ago)
From
L.P. Xin at NAOC <xlp@bao.ac.cn>
L.P. Xin, Y.L. Qiu, J.Y. Wei, J. Wang, J.S. Deng,
C. Wu, X. H. Han, M, Zhai on behalf of EAFON report:
We observed GRB 110328A (Cummings et al. GCN 11823)
with Xinglong TNT telescope at 14:13:22 UT on March 28, 2011,
1.26 hour after the first burst trigger, 33 min after the second trigger.
A series of R-band images were obtained with an exposure
time of 300 sec for each frame. At the X-ray location of GRB 110328A,
and the likely optical counterpart position (Cenko et al. GCN 11827) ,
we do not find any new source down to the limit of 20 mag in R band
relatively to USNO B1.0 R2 mag at the mean time of 1.75 hour after the
first trigger .
Further observations from larger telescopes are encouraged.
This message may be cited.
GCN Circular 11830
Subject
GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451: NOT optical observations.
Date
2011-03-29T06:55:40Z (14 years ago)
From
Giorgos Leloudas at Dark Cosmology Centre <giorgos@dark-cosmology.dk>
G. Leloudas, D. Malesani (DARK/NBI), N.R. Tanvir (U. Leicester), Dong
Xu (WIS), A.J. Levan (U. Warwick), P. Jakobsson (U. Iceland), T.
Pursimo (NOT), report on behalf of a larger collaboration.
We used the Nordic Optical Telescope (La Palma, Spain) equipped with
ALFOSC to observe the field of GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451
(Cummings et al., GCN 11823; Barthelmy et al., GCN 11824).
Observations started at 01:47 UT (12.8 and 12.1 hr after the first and
second trigger, respectively). We obtained 2x600 s in BVR and 4x300 s
in z.
In all filters we detect an object at the coordinates (J2000):
RA: 16:44:50.0
DEC: +57:34:59.13
with an astrometric calibration error of approximately 0.3 arcsec.
This position is within the enhanced XRT error circle (Osborne et al.,
GCN 11826) and is consistent with the coordinates of the object
reported by Cenko et al. (GCN 11827) from pre-outburst images.
At the moment we have no good photometric calibration of the field so
photometry should be considered preliminary (see also GCN 11827).
Assuming R = R1 = 19.40 and B = B2 = 21.30 for the USNO B1.0 star
1475-0312998, we estimate for the counterpart B = 24.0 +- 0.2 and R =
22.6 +- 0.05 (statistical errors only).
At this stage it is not possible to verify whether the source is
variable.
GCN Circular 11833
Subject
GRB 110328A: Gemini spectroscopic observations
Date
2011-03-29T16:13:27Z (14 years ago)
From
Andrew Levan at U.of Leicester <A.J.Levan@warwick.ac.uk>
A.J. Levan (U. Warwick), N.R. Tanvir, K. Wiersema (U. Leicester),
D. Perley (U.C. Berkeley) report for a larger collaboration:
"We obtained spectroscopic observations of the optical source
associated with GRB 110328A with Gemini/GMOS on 29th March 2011. A
preliminary reduction shows emission lines associated with Hbeta,
and OIII (4959, 5007) at a common redshift of z~0.35.
This suggests either a chance alignment of a soft X-ray transient
with a external galaxy (although the lack of an optical counterpart
within our Galaxy would be puzzling), or, more likely, that GRB
110328A is an extragalactic object, with properties unlike any
previously observed GRB
We thank the staff of Gemini, in particular Richard McDermid, for
the execution of these observations"
GCN Circular 11834
Subject
GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451: optical spectroscopy from GTC
Date
2011-03-29T16:28:48Z (14 years ago)
From
Antonio Deugarte at IAA-CSIC <deugarte@iaa.es>
C.C. Thoene, J. Gorosabel (IAA-CSIC), A. de Ugarte Postigo (DARK/NBI), R.
Sanchez-Ramirez (IAA-CSIC), T. Mu�oz-Dar�as (OAB-INAF), S. Guziy and A.J.
Castro-Tirado (IAA-CSIC) report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
We observed the field of GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451 (Cummings et
al. GCNC 11823) using the 10.4m GTC telescope in Roque de los Muchachos
Observatory (La Palma, Spain). We identified the optical counterpart
(Cenko et al. GCNC 11827, Leloudas et al. GCNC 11830) and obtained
low-resolution spectroscopy of the source. The observations consisted in
3x1200s exposures with the R300B grating starting at 4:40 UT of the 29th
March, 15.7h after the first BAT trigger).
In the spectrum we detect a good signal continuum from 4000 to 10000 A
with several emission lines superposed, which we identify as [OII],
[OIII], Hbeta and Halpha at a common redshift of 0.354, consistent with
the value reported by Levan et al. (GCNC 11833).
We acknowledge the excellent support from the GTC staff.
GCN Circular 11836
Subject
GRB 110328A / Swift J164449.3+573451: EVLA Detection
Date
2011-03-29T21:50:24Z (14 years ago)
From
Ashley Zauderer at CfA <bevinashley@gmail.com>