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GRB 150323B

GCN Circular 17619

Subject
GRB 150323B detected in ground analysis of Swift-BAT data
Date
2015-03-23T15:47:19Z (10 years ago)
From
Jay R. Cummings at NASA/GSFC/Swift <james.r.cummings@nasa.gov>
J. R. Cummings (CPI) on behalf of the Swift-BAT science team

At 09:28:38, Swift-BAT triggered (635929) on GRB 150323B. Imaging attempts
were prematurely terminated by a preplanned slew.  A bright source
was detected in ground analysis at 260.447, +38.316, which is

RA (J2000)   17h 21m 47.3s
Dec (J2000)  38d 18' 59"

with an estimated 90% error radius of 1.5 arcmin.

The burst had multiple peaks with a T90 of about 60 seconds. We have
event data for only the first peak.

This is the same event as Fermi GBM 448795722.  A Swift TOO has been
requested.

GCN Circular 17620

Subject
GRB 150323B: Swift ToO observations
Date
2015-03-23T16:42:36Z (10 years ago)
From
Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9@leicester.ac.uk>
P. A. Evans (U. Leicester) reports on behalf of the Swift team:

Swift has initiated a ToO observation of the Swift/BAT GRB 150323B. 
Automated analysis of the XRT data will be presented online at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020485

Any uncatalogued X-ray sources detected in this analysis will be
reported on this website and via GCN COUNTERPART notices. These are
not necessarily related to the Swift/BAT event. Any X-ray source
considered to be a probable afterglow candidate will be reported via a 
GCN Circular after manual consideration.

Details of the XRT automated analysis methods are detailed in Evans et
al. (2007, A&A, 469, 379; 2009, MNRAS, 397, 1177 and 2014, ApJS, 210, 8).

This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.

GCN Circular 17623

Subject
GRB 150323B: Fermi GBM observation
Date
2015-03-23T17:24:20Z (10 years ago)
From
Andreas von Kienlin at MPE <azk@mpe.mpg.de>
A. von Kienlin (MPE) reports on behalf of the Fermi GBM Team:

"At 09:28:39.21 UT on 23 March 2015, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor
triggered and located GRB 150323B (trigger 448795722 / 150323395), 
which was also detected by the Swift (Cummings et al. 2015, GCN 17619).
The GBM on-ground location is consistent with the Swift position.

The angle from the Fermi LAT boresight is 69 degrees.

The GBM light curve consists of multiple peaks 
with a duration (T90) of about 54 s (50-300 keV).
The time-averaged spectrum from T0-0.512 s to T0+60.929 s is
best fit by a Band function with Epeak = 99.14 (+4.50/-6.02) keV,
alpha = -0.89 (+0.07/-0.05), and beta = -2.04 (+0.03/-0.03). 

The event fluence (10-1000 keV) in this time interval is
(2.19 +/- 0.03)E-05 erg/cm^2. The 1.024-sec peak photon flux measured
starting from T0+1.152  s in the 10-1000 keV band
is 8.2 +/- 0.3 ph/s/cm^2.

The spectral analysis results presented above are preliminary;
final results will be published in the GBM GRB Catalog."

GCN Circular 17634

Subject
GRB 150323B: Swift-XRT observations
Date
2015-03-24T11:07:30Z (10 years ago)
From
Phil Evans at U of Leicester <pae9@leicester.ac.uk>
P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASDC), M. de Pasquale (INAF-IASFPA),
D.N. Burrows (PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU),
J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L. Page (U. Leicester), C. Pagani (U.
Leicester) and P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the
Swift-XRT team:

Swift-XRT has performed follow-up observations of the
Swift/BAT-detected burst GRB 150323B (Cummings et al. GCN Circ. 17619),
collecting 4.6 ks of Photon Counting (PC) mode data between T0+40.4 ks
and T0+63.2 ks. 

Two uncatalogued X-ray sources have been detected inside or close to
the Swift/BAT error region, however none of them is above the RASS
limit or shows definitive signs of fading. Therefore, at the present
time we cannot identify which, if any, is the afterglow. Details of
these sources are given below:

Source 1:
  RA (J2000.0):  260.4534  =  17:21:48.83
  Dec (J2000.0): +38.3179  =  +38:19:04.6
  Error: 4.3 arcsec (radius, 90% conf.)
  Count-rate: 0.0103 +/- 0.0018 ct s^-1
  Flux: (4.62 +/- 0.80)e-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (observed, 0.3-10 keV)

Source 2:
  RA (J2000.0):  260.4598  =  17:21:50.35
  Dec (J2000.0): +38.2829  =  +38:16:58.5
  Error: 6.6 arcsec (radius, 90% conf.)
  Count-rate: (2.3 +/- 1.0)e-3 ct s^-1
  Flux: (9.2 +/- 4.1)e-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (observed, 0.3-10 keV)

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis of the XRT observations,
including a position-specific upper limit calculator, are available at
http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020485.

This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.

GCN Circular 17638

Subject
GRB 150323B : Xinglong TNT upper limit
Date
2015-03-25T07:03:31Z (10 years ago)
From
L.P. Xin at NAOC <xlp@bao.ac.cn>
L. P. Xin,   X. F. Wang,  J. Y. Wei,  Y. L. Qiu,  J. S. Deng, 
J. Wang,  X. H. Han and C. Wu on behalf of EAFON report:


We began to observe GRB 150323B (Cumming., GCN 17619;  Kienlin., GCN 17623) 
with Xinglong  0.8-m TNT telescope at 2015-03-23, 18:19:24(UT),
about 8.85 hour after the Swift trigger time. 

 
No any new source was detected in our 10*300sec coadded image 
within the errorbox of BAT (Cumming.,  GCN 17619),
and the errorbox of two uncatalogured X-ray sources (Avanzo et al., 17632)
down to the 3 sigma limit of 21.8 mag in R-band, calibrated by USNO B1.0 R2 mag,
at the mean time of 9.28 hours after the burst. 


We noted that there was a source in USNO B1.0 catalog 
( 17:21:50.446  +38:17:00.13  R2=20.5 mag ),
which was located in the errorbox of the Source 2 (Avanzo et al., 17632),  
but the variation of its brightness was not decided.


The message may be cited.

GCN Circular 17641

Subject
Konus-Wind observation of GRB 150323B
Date
2015-03-25T16:39:15Z (10 years ago)
From
Anastasia Tsvetkova at Ioffe Institute <tsvetkova@mail.ioffe.ru>
S. Golenetskii, R.Aptekar, D. Frederiks, V. Pal'shin, P. Oleynik,
M. Ulanov, D. Svinkin, A. Tsvetkova, A. Lysenko, and T. Cline
on behalf of the Konus-Wind team, report:

The long-duration GRB 150323B
(Swift-BAT trigger #635929: Cummings, GCN 17619;
Fermi-GBM observation: von Kienlin, GCN 17623)
triggered Konus-Wind at T0=34121.196 s UT (09:28:41.196).

The burst light curve shows several bright peaks during first ~60 s 
after the trigger.
In the instrument's soft energy channel, the flaring can be traced up to 
~T0+150 s.

As observed by Konus-Wind, the burst
had a fluence of 2.0(-0.1,+0.2)x10^-5 erg/cm2,
and a 64-ms peak energy flux, measured from T0+22.656 s,
of 1.4(-0.6,+0.6)x10^-6 erg/cm2/s
(both in the 20 keV - 10 MeV energy range).

The time-integrated spectrum of the burst
(measured from T0 to T0+65.792 s)
is best fit in the 20 keV - 15 MeV range
by a power law with exponential cutoff model:
dN/dE ~ (E^alpha)*exp(-E*(2+alpha)/Ep)
with  alpha = -1.53(-0.10,+0.11),
and Ep = 109(-12,+15) keV (chi2 = 109/98 dof).
Fitting by a GRB (Band) model yields the same alpha and Ep,
and an upper limit on the high energy photon index:
beta < -2.90 (chi2 = 109/97 dof).

The spectrum near the peak count rate
(measured from T0+16.640 to T0+24.832 s)
is best fit in the 20 keV - 1 MeV range
by the power law with exponential cutoff model
with  alpha = -1.15(-0.25,+0.29),
and Ep = 215(-51,+108) keV (chi2 = 35/59 dof).
Fitting by a GRB (Band) model yields the same alpha and Ep,
and an upper limit on the high energy photon index:
beta < -1.97 (chi2 = 35/58 dof).

The Konus-Wind light curve of this GRB is available at
http://www.ioffe.ru/LEA/GRBs/GRB150323_T34121/

All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence level.
All the quoted values are preliminary.

GCN Circular 17643

Subject
GRB 150323B; Konkoly optical observations
Date
2015-03-25T20:49:43Z (10 years ago)
From
Janos Kelemen at Konkoly Obs/Hungary <kelemen@konkoly.hu>
J. Kelemen (kelemen at konkoly.hu) on behalf of the GRB OT observing program
at the Konkoly Observatory.

Starting on the night 24/03/2015 02:48 UT we observed the field GRB 150323B
(J. R. Cummings GCN 17619 ). We imaged the X-ray positions published by P.
D'Avanzo et al. GCN 17634.
 On the coadded R band images (total exposure = 1500 sec) we found marginal
optical sources on the positions coincide with soure 1 and source 2.

Source 1  /GCN 17634/         our work        R mag.(Based on USNO-B1.0 stars)
--------------------------------------------------------
        RA: 17:21:48.83    RA: 17:21:48.62       20.8 +/-0.14
       DEC: 38:19:04.6    DEC: 38:19:08.8


Source 2  /GCN 17634/         our work        R mag.(Based on USNO-B1.0 stars)
--------------------------------------------------------
        RA: 17:21:50.35    RA: 17:21:50.47       19.9 +/-0.14
       DEC: 38:16:58.5    DEC: 38:16:59.7

Due to the bad weather variability was not confirmed.

GCN Circular 17649

Subject
GRB 150323B: Khureltogot optical observations
Date
2015-03-27T19:01:34Z (10 years ago)
From
Alexei Pozanenko at IKI, Moscow <apozanen@iki.rssi.ru>
E. Mazaeva (IKI), S. Schmalz (AIP), N. Tungalag (Research Center of 
Astronomy and Geophysics MAS),  A. Volnova (IKI), I.Molotov (KIAM), A. 
Pozanenko (IKI) report on behalf of larger GRB follow-up collaboration:

We observed the field of GRB 150323B  (Cummings  et al., GCN 17619) with 
ORI-40 telescope of Khureltogot observatory  starting on   Mar., 23 (UT) 
16:06:11. We obtained 60 unfiltered images of 60 s exposure. Following 
detection of XRT sources (D'Avanzo et al., GCN 17634) we do not detect 
any source within XRT error circle of the source #1 up to a limiting 
magnitude 21.2. In particular we do detect the optical source found by 
Kelemen et al. (GCN 17643).  At the position of XRT source #2 we found 
optical source which coincides with USNO star mentioned by Xin et al. 
(GCN 17638) and the star of SDSS DR9 catalog J172150.45+381700.1.

Photometry of the sources is following

Source#  Date       UT start  t-T0    Filter  Exp.   mag.    UL(3sigma)
                              (mid, days)      (s)

1       2015-03-23  16:06:11  0.29859  none   60*60  n/d          21.2
2       2015-03-23  16:06:11  0.29859  none   60*60  20.7+/-0.25  21.2

The photometry is based on R magnitudes of nearby SDSS DR9 stars

SDSS9_id               R(Lupton)
J172146.77+381659.6    15.65
J172126.47+382201.1    18.14
J172127.98+382239.0    15.39

GCN Circular 17657

Subject
GRB 150323B: Swift-XRT afterglow detection
Date
2015-03-30T14:10:10Z (10 years ago)
From
Alex Amaral-Rogers at U.of Leicester <aar14@leicester.ac.uk>
P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASDC), M. de Pasquale (INAF-IASFPA),
D.N. Burrows (PSU), J.A. Kennea (PSU), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU),
J.P. Osborne (U. Leicester), K.L. Page (U. Leicester), C. Pagani (U.
Leicester) and P.A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the
Swift-XRT team:

Swift-XRT has conducted further observations of the field of the
Swift/BAT-detected burst GRB 150323B (Cummings et al. GCN Circ. 17619).
The observations now extend from T0+40.4 ks to T0+483.5 ks. 

Of the sources reported by D'Avanzo et al. (GCN Circ. 17634), "Source
1" is fading with 3-sigma significance, and is therefore likely the GRB
afterglow.  The position of this source is RA, Dec=260.4534, +38.3179
which is equivalent to:

RA (J2000): 17:21:48.83
Dec(J2000): +38:19:04.6

with an uncertainty of 4.3 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence).  This
position is 18 arcsec from the Swift/BAT position.  The source is
fading with alpha >0.3.

The results of the XRT-team automatic analysis of the likely afterglow
are at http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020485/index_1.php.
The results of the full analysis of the XRT observations are available
at http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020485.

This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.

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