Gamma-ray Burst 000604

On June 4, 2000 at 00:35:14 UT a burst was detected by Ulysses, NEAR, and Konus.

(All information courtesy of the instrument teams.)

Previous IAU Circulars

• none

• GCN notice #687
  K. Hurley, on behalf of the Ulysses GRB team, T. Cline, on behalf of the NEAR GRB team, and E. Mazets and S. Golenetskii, on behalf of the Konus Wind GRB team, report:
  The gamma-ray burst gods were very angry on Sunday June 4. This burst was observed by Ulysses, NEAR, and Konus at 2114 s UT. As observed by Ulysses, it had a duration ~15 s, a 25-100 keV fluence of ~1.3x10^-5 erg/cm^2, and a 0.25 s peak flux of ~3x10^-6 erg/cm^2 s. We have localized it to a preliminary error box whose area is ~22 sq. arcmin. (3 sigma) and whose coordinates are:

      RA(2000)                 DEC(2000)
   15 h 35 m 47.21 s     10 o 41 '  17.56 "  (CENTER)
   15 h 35 m 42.92 s     10 o 41 '   2.17 "  (CORNER)
   15 h 36 m  4.71 s     10 o 32 '  10.77 "  (CORNER)
   15 h 35 m 29.72 s     10 o 50 '  24.70 "  (CORNER)
   15 h 35 m 51.51 s     10 o 41 '  32.95 "  (CORNER)
  

  This error box can be refined considerably.
• GCN notice #688
  I. Cotoros, A. Mahabal, S. Yost, and A. Diercks report on behalf of the Caltech-NRAO-CARA GRB collaboration:
  We imaged the entire IPN error region of GRB000604 (Hurley et al, GCN #687) with the Palomar 60" telescope from June 6.24 - 6.28 UT. The error region was covered by two pointings with three 500s integrations in Gunn-r at each pointing. Although the seeing was rather poor (1.5" FWHM), the combined frames are significantly deeper than DPOSS (Djorgovski, astro-ph/9809187) images of the field (limiting magnitude Gunn-r~20.5). Visual inspection of the IPN error region reveals no new objects above the DPOSS limit.
• GCN notice #690
  E.M. Leibowitz, E. Ofek, J. Dunn and P. Ibbetson report:
  On 2000 June 06.7577 we obtained a 600 sec unfiltered exposure of the GRB000604 area, with the direct imaging mode of the FOSC camera, attached to the 1-m telecope of the Wise Observatory. A star image, which has no counterpart either on the Red or on the Blue DSS_II plates, is apparent at (J2000) R.A.=15:35:54.67 Dec=+10:41:21.5, as measured relative to 126 USNO-A2.0 stars. The stellar image lies outside the preliminary 3 Sigma Gamma ray error box (Hurley et al GCN 687), some 110 arcsec East of the nominal position of the burst. On our unfiltered image, the stellar looking object is 0.2 mag fainter than star A, seen on the DSS plate at R.A.=15:35:53.59 Dec=+10:41:21.5, and 0.35 mag. fainter than star B at R.A.=15:35:54.96 Dec=10:40:32.4. Image is posted at http://wise-obs.tau.ac.il/~eran/GRB000604/ and reproduced below.
  

• GCN notice #692
  A. Diercks and I. Cotoros report on behalf of the Caltech-NRAO-CARA GRB collaboration:
  We have examined our Gunn-r images of the GRB000604 error box (Hurley et al, GCN #687) from June 6.24 - 6.28 UT (Cotoros et al, GCN #688) and do not detect the object reported by Leibowitz (GCN #690). The coordinates of Leibowitz's candidate fall within the overlap of our two pointings and the combined image (5x500s) has a 5-sigma detection limit measured relative to several USNO A2.0 stars of approximately r ~ 22.0 +/- 0.2, though this calibration should be considered preliminary pending more accurate photometry of the region.
  We find for Leibowitz's Star A (as shown in the finding chart http://wise-obs.tau.ac.il/~eran/GRB000604/) RA=15:35:52.6,10:41:08.8 +/- 1 arcsec measured against 58 USNO A2.0 stars. At the resolution of our images, Leibowitz's "Star B" is identifable as a galaxy.
  In addition, we have re-imaged the entire IPN error box with the Palomar 60" from June 7.26 - 7.30 UT in Gunn-r (5x500s). Lebowitz's object is not detected in our combined image which has a similar limiting magnitude as the June 6 data.
  Given the non-detection of Leibowitz's candidate in our data at epochs which bracket the Wise observations, we believe this object is not related to GRB000604.
  An image of the field is available at: http://astro.caltech.edu/~ad/grb000604/grb_im.ps
• GCN notice #694
  Christian Veillet reports:
  The field of GRB000604 has been observed using the CFH12K CCD mosaic camera at the prime focus of the 3.6-m CFH Telescope in the course of the French GRB follow-up program at CFHT.
  Two 600s exposures with moderate seeing (image quality between 0.9" and 1.0") have been obtained on 2000 June 07.430 UTC (mean epoch).
  Close to the location of the candidate proposed in GCN 690 (Leibowitz et al), only a very faint source, visible on both frames, is unambiguously detected. Its location is 15:35:54.22 +10:41:23.9 , and it is the only source within a radius of 8" of the proposed candidate. Source A position is found as 15:35:52.64 +10:41:08.0 , in good agreement with the position posted in GCN 692.
  A preliminary photometric reduction shows this source to be 3.9 +/- 0.2 magnitudes fainter in R than source A (GCN 690). Would it be the GCN 690 candidate, it would mean a ~3.5 drop in magnitude in slightly less than 0.7 day. It would then be visible on June 6.26 exposures by Diercks et al (GCN 692).
  In agreement with Diercks et al (GCN 692), I conclude that the GCN 690 candidate is likely to be unrelated to GRB000604.
  An image of the candidate area is posted at http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/~veillet/grb.html Another pair of images is planned tonight to allow a search for variable sources on the whole GRB000604 field and a final check on the GCN 690 candidate.
  Alain Doressoundiram is acknowledged for his help in this observation.
• GCN notice #695
  E.M. Leibowitz, E. Ofek, J. Dan and P. Ibbetson report:
  On June 07.804, 07.816 and 07.839, with the CCD camera attached to the Wise Observatory 1-m telescope, we obtained unfiltered (900 sec), R (900 sec) and B (2400 sec) exposures, respectively, of the GRB000604 area. The object which we have reported about in GCN 690 is not seen in any of these frames, consistently with Diercks & Cotoros (GCN 692) and Viellet (GCN 694). We confirm the corrected coordinates of star A, as given in GCN 692 and 694. For the record we place our detection frame of June 6, as well as our 3 additional frames of 1 night later, in the public domain. They can be retrieved in FITS format from our web site http://wise-obs.tau.ac.il/~eran/GRB000604/.