Gamma-ray Burst 141229A

(All information courtesy of the instrument teams.)

Previous IAU Circulars

• none

• GCN Circular #17246
  M. Fujita, H. Negoro (Nihon U.), M. Serino (RIKEN), S. Ueno, H. Tomida, S. Nakahira, M. Kimura, M. Ishikawa, Y. E. Nakagawa (JAXA), T. Mihara, M. Sugizaki, M. Morii, J. Sugimoto, T. Takagi, A. Yoshikawa, M. Matsuoka (RIKEN), N. Kawai, Y. Tachibana, T. Yoshii (Tokyo Tech), A. Yoshida, T. Sakamoto, Y. Kawakubo, H. Ohtsuki (AGU), H. Tsunemi, D. Uchida (Osaka U.), M. Nakajima, K. Fukushima, T. Onodera, K. Suzuki, F. Honda, T. Namba (Nihon U.), Y. Ueda, M. Shidatsu, T. Kawamuro, T. Hori (Kyoto U.), Y. Tsuboi, A. Kawagoe (Chuo U.), M. Yamauchi, Y. Morooka, D. Itoh (Miyazaki U.), K. Yamaoka (Nagoya U.)
  The MAXI/GSC nova-alert system triggered a bright uncatalogued X-ray transient source at UT 11:49:02 on 2014 December 29. We obtain a rectangular error box for the transient source with the following corners:

  (R.A., Dec) = (71.479 deg, -18.956 deg) = (04 45 54, -18 57 20) (J2000)
  (R.A., Dec) = (71.846 deg, -18.494 deg) = (04 47 22, -18 29 38) (J2000)
  (R.A., Dec) = (72.599 deg, -19.778 deg) = (04 50 23, -19 46 41) (J2000)
  (R.A., Dec) = (72.961 deg, -19.311 deg) = (04 51 50, -19 18 40) (J2000)
  

  There is an additional systematic uncertainty of 0.1 deg (90% containment radius). The X-ray flux averaged over the scan was 179 +- 29 mCrab (4-10keV, 1 sigma error). There was no significant excess flux in the previous transit at UT 10:16.
• GCN Circular #17247
  P. A. Evans (U. Leicester) reports on behalf of the Swift team:
  Swift has initiated a series of observations, tiled on the sky, of the Fermi/GBM GRB 141229A. Automated analysis of the XRT data will be presented online at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/TILED_GRB00036
  Any uncatalogued X-ray sources detected in this analysis will be reported on this website and via GCN COUNTERPART notices. The probability of finding serendipitous sources, unrelated to the Fermi/GBM event is high: 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; and 2009, MNRAS, 397, 1177).
  This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.
• GCN Circular #17249
  O.J. Roberts (UCD) reports on behalf of the Fermi GBM Team:
  "At 11:48:59.84 UT on the 29th of December 2014, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor triggered and located GRB 141229A (trigger 441546542 / 141229492 ). The GBM on-ground location, using the Fermi GBM trigger data, is consistent with the MAXI/GSC position (Negoro et al. 2014, GCN 17246).
  The angle from the Fermi LAT boresight is about 104 degrees.
  The GBM light curve consists of a single FRED-like peak with a duration (T90) of about 11 seconds (50-300 keV). The time- averaged spectrum from T0+0.0 to T0+11 seconds is adequately fit by a power law function with an exponential high-energy cutoff. The power law index is -0.91 +/- 0.08 and the cutoff energy, parameterized as Epeak, is 275 +/- 31 keV.
  The event fluence (10-1000 keV) in this time interval is (5.1 +/- 0.4)E-06 erg/cm^2. The 1-sec peak photon flux measured starting from T0-0.1 s in the 10-1000 keV band is 8.9 +/- 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 #17251
  M.G. Bernardini, A. Melandri, P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB) & P. A. Evans (U. Leicester) report on behalf of the Swift-XRT team:
  Swift XRT has observed the error circle of GRB 141229A, detected by MAXI/GSC (Fujita et al., GCN 17246) and Fermi/GBM (Roberts, GCN 17249) in a series of observations tiled on the sky. The total exposure time is 6.6 ks spread over 7 fields. The observations started 11.7 ks after the Fermi/GBM trigger. Within these data we detect a possibly fading, uncatalogued X-ray source at RA, Dec=3D72.42830, -19.23282 which is equivalent to:

     RA (J2000.0)  = 04h 49m 42.79s
     Dec (J2000.0) = -19 13 58.1
  

  with an uncertainty of 4.7 arcsec (radius, 90% confidence). The exposure at this location was 1.4 ks. With the present uncertainties, a secure identification of the afterglow is not possible.
  The results of the automatic processing for this source are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/TILED_GRB00036/index_2.php
  This circular is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.
• GCN Circular #17252
  D. Xu (DARK, NAOC), H.-B. Niu, A. Esamdin, L. Ma (XAO) report:
  We observed the field of MAXI-detected GRB 141229A (Fujita et al., GCN 17246), using the 1m optical telescope located at Nanshan, Xinjiang, China, which has a field of view of 1.3x1.3 deg^2. Two epochs of 300s R-band images were obtained at 15:26:23 UT and 18:36:14 UT on 2014-12-29, respectively. No optical source was detected at the XRT position reported in Bernardini et al. (GCN 17251), down to a limiting magnitude of R=20.5.
• GCN Circular #17253
  J. Gorosabel (IAA-CSIC/UPV-EHU), S. Hellmich (DLR), S. Mottola (DLR), report on behalf of a larger collaboration:
  We used the 1.23m CAHA telescope to image the XRT source (Benardini et al. GCN 17251) detected in the GRB 141229A field (Fujita et al. GCN 17246; Evans et al. GCN 17247; Roberts et al. GCN 17249). The observations were carried out in the I-band starting on Dec 29.93278 UT (~10.6 hours post GRB). No object brighter than I~21 (Vega) is detected within the XRT error circle.
• GCN Circular #17256
  J. R. Cummings, S. D. Barthelmy (GSFC), W. H. Baumgartner (GSFC/UMBC), N. Gehrels (GSFC), H. A. Krimm (GSFC/USRA), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC), C. B. Markwardt (GSFC), D. M. Palmer (LANL), T. Sakamoto (AGU), M. Stamatikos (OSU), T. N. Ukwatta (LANL) (i.e. the Swift-BAT team):
  GRB 141229A (Fujita et al., GCN 17246) occurred during a preplanned Swift slew maneuver. A mosaic of BAT images at the time of the burst contains a significant source consistent with the XRT afterglow position (Bernardini et al., GCN 17251). The partial coding was 6%.
  The mask-weighted light curve shows a single FRED-shaped peak. T90 (15-350 keV) is 7 +- 1 sec (estimated error including systematics).
  The time-averaged spectrum in 8 seconds is best fit by a simple power-law model. The power law index of the time-averaged spectrum is 1.29 +- 0.17. The fluence in the 15-150 keV band is 1.5 +- 0.3 x 10^-6 erg/cm2. The 1-sec peak photon flux measured in the 15-150 keV band is 1.2 +- 0.5 ph/cm2/sec. All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence level.
  Since this burst was not detected onboard, the usual automated BAT data products are not available.
• GCN Circular #17259
  E. Gorbovskoy,V. Lipunov, P.Balanutsa, D.Denisenko, M.Pruzhinskaya,A.Kuznetsov, V.Kornilov, D.Kuvshinov, N.Tyurina Lomonosov Moscow State University, Sternberg Astronomical Institute
  D.Buckley, S. Potter, A. Kniazev South African Astronomical Observatory
  O.Gres, K.Ivanov, S.Yazev, N.M.Budnev, V.A.Poleshchuk Irkutsk State University
  V.Yurkov, Yu.Sergienko, D.Varda, E.Sinyakov Blagoveschensk Educational State University
  A. Tlatov, A.V. Parhomenko, D. Dormidontov, V.Sennik Kislovodsk Solar Station of the Pulkovo Observatory
  V.Krushinsky, I.Zalozhnih, A. Popov Ural Federal University, Kourovka
  H. Levato and C. Saffe Instituto de Ciencias Astronomicas de la Tierra y del Espacio (ICATE), San Juan, Argentina
  C. Mallamacci, C. Lopez and F. Podest Observatorio Astronomico Felix Aguilar (OAFA), San Juan National University, Argentina
  MASTER-Kislovodsk robotic telescope (in Russia) was pointed to MAXI GRB141229A (Fujita et al., GCN 17246) error box after 5 hours (direktly after error box arises at 2014-12-29 16:46:38 UT.
  MASTER-SAAO robotic telescope (MASTER-Net: http://observ.pereplet.ru) instaleted in South African Astronomical Observatory (Sutherland) automaticaly was pointed to the MAXI GRB141229A (Fujita et al., GCN 17246) after sun set at 2014-12-29 20:57:10 UT (9 hours after trigger time) in unfiltered regime.
  There is no any optical transients inside Swift XRT error box (Bernardini et al., GCN 17251).
  Our upper limits on Kislovodsk and SAAO observatiories available in Table 1.

  Table 1.
     Date       Time (start)  T_trig-Tmid  Expt.  Site.  Mlim  Coadd
                   UT             s
  2014-12-29  16:46:38.543     19531      2160    KIS    19.6   12
  2014-12-29  20:57:10.861     34986      3600   SAAO    22.3   20
  

  MASTER-SAAO image available here: http://master.sai.msu.ru/static/GRB/MASTER_SAAO_GRB141225A.png
  This message may be cited.
  
• GCN Circular #17260
  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 141229A (MAXI/GSC detection: Fujita et al., GCN Circ. 17246; Fermi-GBM observation: Roberts, GCN Circ. 17249; Swift-BAT observation: Cummings, GCN Circ. 17256) triggered Konus-Wind at T0=42542.652 s UT (11:49:02.652).
  The burst light curve shows a single pulse with a duration of ~7.6 s. The emission is seen up to ~10 MeV.
  The Konus-Wind light curve of this GRB is available at http://www.ioffe.ru/LEA/GRBs/GRB141229_T42542/
  As observed by Konus-Wind, the burst had a fluence of 4.7(-0.6,+0.8)x10^-6 erg/cm2, and a 64-ms peak flux, measured from T0+0.064 s, of 4.6(-1.3,+1.3)x10^-6 erg/cm2/s (both in the 20 keV - 10 MeV energy range).
  The time-averaged spectrum of the burst (measured from T0 to T0+8.448 s) is best fit in the 20 keV - 10 MeV range by a power law with exponential cutoff model: dN/dE ~ (E^alpha)*exp(-E*(2+alpha)/Ep) with alpha = -1.03 (-0.22,+0.25) and Ep = 254 (-51,+86) keV (chi2 = 82/97 dof). Fitting by a GRB (Band) model yields the same alpha and Ep, and an upper limit on the high energy photon index: beta < -2.3 (chi2 = 82/96 dof)
  The spectrum near the maximum count rate (measured from T0+0.000 to T0+0.256 s) is best fit in the 20 keV - 10 MeV range by a power law with exponential cutoff model: dN/dE ~ (E^alpha)*exp(-E*(2+alpha)/Ep) with alpha = 0.3 (-0.5,+0.7) and Ep = 407 (-71,+101) keV (chi2 = 35/36 dof). Fitting by a GRB (Band) model yields the same alpha and Ep, and an upper limit on the high energy photon index: beta < -2.4 (chi2 = 35/35 dof)
  All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence level. All the quoted values are preliminary.