Gamma-ray Burst 190331B

(All information courtesy of the instrument teams.)

Previous IAU Circulars

• none

• GCN Circular #24031
  P. A. Evans (U. Leicester) reports on behalf of the Swift team:
  Swift has initiated a ToO observation of the Swift/BAT GRB 190331B. Automated analysis of the XRT data will be presented online at http://www.swift.ac.uk/ToO_GRBs/00020885
  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 #24041
  K. L. Page (U. Leicester), D. M. Palmer (LANL) and N. P. M. Kuin (UCL-MSSL) report on behalf of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory Team:
  Ground processing of Swift-BAT data has discovered a possible long duration burst, GRB 190331B, in onboard images covering 03:59:05 - 04:25:29 UT of 2019-03-31. The onboard-calculated source location is RA, Dec = 326.258, -54.555 deg which is

   RA(J2000)  =  21h 45m 01.9s
   Dec(J2000) = -54d 33' 17.1"
  

  As is usual for image triggers, the light curve shows no obvious variation. However, the source appears both in a single image covering the time range given above, and in individual shorter images covering subintervals, specifically 03:59:05-04:05:21; 04:05:21-04:11:21; and 04:23:37-04:25:29 The location was outside of the BAT Field of View both before and after this time interval due to Swift's pre-planned observing schedule, so this 26 minute span is the lower limit of the emission interval.
  Swift-XRT has performed follow-up observations of this source, collecting 2.0 ks of Photon Counting (PC) mode data between T0+73.3 ks and T0+79.0 ks.
  One uncatalogued X-ray source has been detected consistent with being within 394 arcsec of the Swift/BAT position, it is below the RASS limit and shows no definitive signs of fading. Therefore, at the present time we cannot confirm this as the afterglow. Details of this source are given below:
  Source 1:

    RA (J2000.0):  326.2238  =  21:44:53.71
    Dec (J2000.0): -54.4717  =  -54:28:18.2
    Error: 3.7 arcsec (radius, 90% conf. [Enhanced position])
    Count-rate: 0.0124 +/- 0.0030 ct s^-1 
    Distance: 261 arcsec from Swift/BAT position.
    Flux: (5.5 +/- 1.3)e-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 (observed, 0.3-10 keV)
  

  Another uncatalogued source was also detected, however this was too far from the GRB position to be the afterglow.
  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/00020885.
  The Swift-UVOT observations of GRB 190331B did not find a new source, although a source, present in the DSS near the XRT position, is also seen in the UVOT.
  Preliminary 3-sigma upper limits using the UVOT photometric system (Breeveld et al. 2011, AIP Conf. Proc. 1358, 373) are:

  Filter         T_start(s)   T_stop(s)      Exp(s)       3-sigma UL
  
  white          73752         79024          283         >18.71
  v              74187         74615          421         >17.35
  u              73318         78999         1075         >18.73
  

  The magnitudes in the table are not corrected for the Galactic extinction due to the reddening of E(B-V) = 0.02 in the direction of the burst (Schlegel et al. 1998).
  Although the gamma-ray emission duration is unusually long for a GRB, the source's location is 45 degrees from the Galactic plane, reducing the likelihood that this is a Galactic transient.
  Burst Advocate for this burst is K. L. Page (klp5 AT leicester.ac.uk). 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/)
• GCN Circular #24043
  Y.-D. Hu, X.-Y.Li, E. Fernandez-Garcia, A. Ayala, A. J. Castro-Tirado (IAA-CSIC), C. Perez del Pulgar, A. Castellon, I. Carrasco (Univ. de Malaga), and R. Querel (NIWA), on behalf of a larger collaboration, report:
  The 60cm BOOTES-3/YA robotic telescope at NIWA Lauder in Otago (New Zealand) responded to the Swift ground-detected burst GRB 190331B (Page et al. GCNC 24041) ~2.36 day after the burst. The first images (clear filter) were obtained starting on April 2, 12:39 UT. At the uncatalogued X-ray source position found by Swift/XRT, no optical afterglow is detected down to 20.3 mag on a 900s co-added image, in agreement with the non-detection by Swift/UVOT.
  We thank the staff at NIWA for its excellent support.
• GCN Circular #24052
  K.L. Page (U. Leicetser) reports on behalf of the Swift-XRT team:
  Swift has performed a second follow-up observation of the ground-detected Swift-BAT GRB 190331B (Page et al., GCN Circ. 24041). An additional 2.7 ks of data were collected, entirely in Photon Counting mode, 334.5 ks after the trigger time
  The count rate of the possible afterglow counterpart ("Source 1") mentioned in GCN Circ. 24041 remains constant across both observations, at about 0.01 ct s^-1. We therefore conclude that we did not detect an X-ray afterglow for GRB 190331B.
  This is an official product of the Swift-XRT team.