Super-Bright Gamma-Ray Burst ("Monster gamma-ray burst"): GRB 030329

Super-Bright Gamma-Ray Burst ("Monster gamma-ray burst"): GRB030329

(Fading afterglow: Department of Astronomy, Kyoto University)

If you are searching for general information about gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), please look at VSNET GRB page.

[Some Japanese information]

Detection by HETE-2

(GCN 1997)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1997
SUBJECT: GRB030329 (=H2652): A Long, Extremely Bright GRB Localized by the HETE WXM and SXC
DATE:    03/03/29 19:53:03 GMT
FROM:    Don Lamb at U.Chicago

R. Vanderspek, G. Crew, J. Doty, J. Villasenor, G. Monnelly, N. Butler, T. Cline, J.G. Jernigan, A. Levine, F. Martel, E. Morgan, G. Prigozhin, G. Azzibrouck, J. Braga, R. Manchanda, and G. Pizzichini, on behalf of the HETE Operations and HETE Optical-SXC Teams;

G. Ricker, J-L Atteia, N. Kawai, D. Lamb, and S. Woosley on behalf of the HETE Science Team;

T. Donaghy, M. Suzuki, Y. Shirasaki, C. Graziani, M. Matsuoka, T. Tamagawa, K. Torii, T. Sakamoto, A. Yoshida, E. Fenimore, M. Galassi, T. Tavenner, Y. Nakagawa, D. Takahashi, R. Satoh, and Y. Urata, on behalf of the HETE WXM Team;

M. Boer, J-F Olive, J-P Dezalay, C. Barraud and K. Hurley on behalf of the HETE FREGATE Team;

write:

At 11:37:14.67 UTC (41834.67 s UT) on 29 Mar 2003, the HETE FREGATE, WXM, and SXC instruments detected event H2652, a long, extremely bright GRB.

The burst triggered FREGATE in the 6-120 keV energy band. The burst occurred outside of the effective FOV of the WXM Y-camera. Ground analysis of the SXC data produced a localization that was reported in a GCN Notice at 12:50:24 UT, 73 minutes after the burst. The SXC ground localization SNR was 20. Further ground analysis of the SXC data has provided an SXC localization that can be expressed as a 90% confidence circle that is 2 arcminutes in radius and is centered at

SXC-Ground: RA = +10h 44m 50s, Dec = +21d 30' 54" (J2000).

The SXC localization is dominated by systematic errors, which are larger than usual because the burst occurred at the edge of the SXC FOV. (The error circle radius of 2 arcminutes reported in the GCN Notice for H2652 did not include the larger systematic errors.)

Ground analysis of the WXM data produced a WXM localization. The WXM ground localization SNR is > 20. The WXM localization can be expressed as a 90% confidence rectangle that is 12 arcminutes in width and 2.25 degrees in length. The center of the rectangle lies at

WXM-Ground: RA = +10h 44m 24.7, Dec = +23d 20' 20" (J2000),

and its corners lie at

RA = +10h 44m 39.6s, Dec = +23d 29' 20", RA = +10h 43m 53.5s, Dec = +23d 26' 35", RA = +10h 44m 09.8s, Dec = +21d 11' 38", RA = +10h 44m 55.9s, Dec = +21d 14' 17" (J2000).

The width of the WXM localization is dominated by systematic errors, which are larger than usual because the burst occurred at the edge of the WXM FOV. The WXM localization is a long, narrow strip because the burst occurred at the edge of the WXM FOV in a region of the sky that would have been viewed by the YB-camera, which is not operational.

The burst duration in the 30-400 keV band was > 25 s. The fluence of the burst was ~1 x 10-4 ergs cm-2 and the peak flux over 1.2 s was > 7 x 10-6 ergs cm-2 s-1 (i.e., > 100 x Crab flux) in the same energy band.

A light curve and skymap for GRB030329 is provided at the following URL:

http://space.mit.edu/HETE/Bursts/GRB030329

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1996
SUBJECT: RXTE detection of GRB 030329 afterglow
DATE:    03/03/29 19:37:01 GMT
FROM:    Frank Marshall at GSFC

Marshall, F.E. and Swank, J.H. (NASA/GSFC) report:

RXTE detected the X-ray afterglow of GRB 030329 (HETE trigger 2652) during a 27 minute observation that began about 4h51m after the burst at 16:28 UT on March 29 . The flux was about 1.4e-10 ergs/s/cm**2 in the 2-10 keV band or about 0.007 times as bright as the Crab Nebula. This is one of the brightest afterglows ever detected with RXTE. The spectrum is well fit by a power law model with a photon index of 2.0 and an upper limit on absorption of 1e22 Nh/cm**2. The X-ray flux was about 20% lower during a second observation starting at 17:32 UT.

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Independent Optical Afterglow Detections!

(GCN 1985, vsnet-grb-info 857)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1985
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: Optical afterglow candidate
DATE:    03/03/29 13:27:28 GMT
FROM:    Paul Price at RSAA, ANU

B.A. Peterson and P.A. Price (RSAA, ANU) reports:

We have observed the error-circle of GRB 030329 with the SSO 40-inch telescope in R-band. We identify a source that is not present on archival images at approximate coordinates:

        RA: 10:44:49.5    Dec: +21:31:23    (J2000)

This position is preliminary, with an estimated error of 5 arcsec.

Further observations are planned.

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(GCN 1986, vsnet-grb-info 858)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1986
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: OT candidate
DATE:    03/03/29 13:43:32 GMT
FROM:    Ken ichi Torii at RIKEN

K. Torii (RIKEN) report:

The entire error region of GRB 030329 (HETE trigger 2652) was observed by the automated system at RIKEN (0.25-m f/6.8 reflector equipped with unfiltered CCD AP6E). The observatin started at 2003 Mar. 29 12:52:09 UT and 60-s intergration is repeated.

We find a new bright source at position (R.A., Dec.) = (10 44 50.0, +21 31 18) (J2000) (preliminary values with a formal error of 6 arcseconds in each coordinate). The object is about 13 mag (USNO-A2.0 red magnitude).

(GCN 1987, vsnet-grb-info 859)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1987
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: Optical afterglow candidate
DATE:    03/03/29 13:59:38 GMT
FROM:    Paul Price at RSAA, ANU

P.A. Price and B.A. Peterson (RSAA, ANU) report:

A refined position for the optical afterglow candidate of GRB 030329 is:

        RA: 10:44:50.0   Dec: 21:31:17.8   (J2000)

with an estimated error of 0.5 arcsec in each axis.

We estimate the afterglow candidate to be R ~ 12.4 mag (!!!).

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(GCN 1989, vsnet-grb-info 861)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1989
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: Optical afterglow fading
DATE:    03/03/29 14:31:43 GMT
FROM:    Makoto Uemura at U. of Kyoto, Astro.

M. Uemura (Kyoto University) reports:

We have started observations of the field of GRB 030329 at 12:53:41 UT, and confirmed the bright afterglow candidate reported in GCN 1985 and 1986. We use 30-cm and 25-cm SC telescopes and unfiltered CCDs at Kyoto, Japan.

In this one hour observation, our perliminary analysis revealed a rapid fading of the object. From 12:53:41 UT to 13:51:01, the object faded about 0.53 mag, which establishes that the bright candidate is a genuine optical afterglow of GRB 030329.

Astrometry

(GCN 1994, vsnet-grb-info 865)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  1994
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: precise position from Kyoto images
DATE:    03/03/29 17:19:44 GMT
FROM:    Hitoshi Yamaoka at Kyushu U., VSNET-GRB collab.

M. Uemura (Kyoto U.), H. Yamaoka (Kyushu U.), R. Ishioka, and T. Kato (Kyoto U.) report on behalf of VSNET-GRB collaboration:

The precise position for the optical afterglow candidate of GRB 030329 (GCN 1985, 1986, 1987, 1689) was derived from Kyoto images (GCN 1689) as (with mean error of measurements of nine images):

    R.A.= 10h44m50s.030 +/- 0s.005,  Decl. = +21d31'18".15 +/- 0".07.

On the DSS 2 B, R, and I images, there is no distinct source down to the limiting magnitudes, which indicates the parent galaxy is more than 8-9 mag dimmer of the OT at 76 minutes after explosion.

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Emerging Supernova! (SN 2003dh)

(GCN 2107, vsnet-grb-info 989)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  2107
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: Supernova Spectrum Emerging
DATE:    03/04/07 01:54:45 GMT
FROM:    Krzysztof Z. Stanek at CfA

T. Matheson (CfA), P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), N. Hathi, R. Jansen, R. Windhorst, L. Echevarria (ASU), J. Lee (Arizona), W. Brown, N. Caldwell, P. Berlind. M. Calkins and K. Z. Stanek (CfA) report:

We obtained spectra of the afterglow of GRB 030329 (Peterson & Price, GCN 1985; Torii: GCN 1986) with the 6.5-m MMT and Blue-Channel spectrograph each night from March 30.12 to April 6.15 (UT). The spectra cover a wavelength range of 350 nm to 850 nm with a resolution of 0.6 nm (FWHM). The early spectra consist of a power-law continuum with narrow emission lines originating from HII regions in the host galaxy (Martini et al. GCN 2013; Della Ceca et al. GCN 2015; Greiner et al. GCN 2020; Caldwell et al. GCN 2053). However, our spectrum taken Apr. 6.15 (UT) shows a broad peak in flux at approximately 570 nm and another weak deviation from a power-law near 470nm that were not evident in the earlier spectra.

The April 6 spectrum is well reproduced by adding a spectrum of SN 1998bw (Patat et al. 2001, ApJ, 555, 900) seven days before maximum light to a power-law distribution. We conclude that a supernova spectrum is emerging from the afterglow light. The brightness of the supernova is approximately V=22 based on the strengths of the broad features relative to a pure power-law. Further spectroscopy is planned.

A plot of the spectrum compared with SN 1998bw is available at:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~tmatheson/grb030329_sn.jpg

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(GCN 2120, vsnet-grb-info 1003)

TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  2120
SUBJECT: GRB 030329: Supernova Confirmed
DATE:    03/04/08 20:13:40 GMT
FROM:    Krzysztof Z. Stanek at CfA

T. Matheson (CfA), P. Garnavich (Notre Dame), E. W. Olszewski (Steward), P. Harding (Case Western), D. Eisenstein (Arizona), B. Pindor (Princeton), N. Hathi, R. Jansen, R. Windhorst, L. Echevarria (ASU), J. Lee (Arizona), W. Brown, N. Caldwell, P. Berlind, M. Calkins and K. Z. Stanek (CfA) report:

Additional spectra of the afterglow of GRB 030329 (Peterson & Price, GCN 1985; Torii: GCN 1986) were obtained with the 6.5-m MMT on Apr. 8.13 UT. The spectral features discovered by Matheson et al. (GCN 2107) and confirmed by Garnavich et al. (IUAC 8108) continue to develop. Subtracting a scaled version of the Apr. 4.27 UT power-law spectrum from the Apr. 8.13 spectrum reveals an energy distribution remarkably similar to that of the SN1998bw a week before maximum light (Patat et al. 2001, ApJ, 555, 900). This spectrum can be seen at

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~tmatheson/compgrb.jpg

The spectral similarity to SN 1998bw and other 'hypernovae' such as 1997ef (Iwamoto et al. 2000, ApJ, 534, 660) provides strong evidence that classical GRBs originate from core-collapse supernovae.

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Preliminary Early Light Curve

(The data are taken from GCN circulars)

First-Ever Visual Observation(!) of a GRB Afterglow

(vsnet-chat 6189)

Dear All,

Please find my GCN GRB observation report bellow. This is very probably the first ever visual observation of a gamma-ray burst optical afterglow!

When I received the first reports of this very bright (R=12.4) and well positioned (in Leo) optical transient (OT) it was late afternoon in Finland. But, of course, our sky was completely clouded and the weather forecast promised even more clouds with possible rain or snow for the night. There was still some possibility that southern and western Finland would have better conditions, so I alerted as many variable star and Deep Sky observers as possible to observe this very rare event.

Two very experienced DS-observers, Markus Tuukkanen and Riku Henriksson, took their large mobile telescopes and went looking for clear sky. Both reported live on their mobile phones soon after dark, around 20 UT, that they were seeing the OT as a 14.3 magnitude stellar object on their eyepieces! The quickly worsening weather at both sites did not allow long observations so neither was able to see the OT fading. Also no obvious fast flickering or color was seen.

Both observers made sketches of the GRB030329 field and the drawings are or will be posted to the Deep Sky Archive http://archive.ermiksson.net/.

I would be very interested to know if anyone else has seen this (or any other) GRB afterglows visually. It should have been easy target in especially in the Far East when it was blazing at 13 magnitudes during the first hours.

Personally I was trying to observe the OT with a CCD at Nyrola Observatory from 19 to 24 UT. From the total of 148 images only about 50 taken during the periods of thinner clouds show the afterglow. Image analysis is in progress. And yes, it was snowing when I closed the observatory!

best regards,

arto
--
Arto Oksanen                       mailto:arto.oksanen@jklsirius.fi
Nyrola Observatory    http://www.ursa.fi/sirius/nytt/nytt_info.html

-----Original Message----- TITLE: GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT NUMBER: 2010 SUBJECT: GRB 030329: visual observations DATE: 03/03/30 00:33:03 GMT FROM: Arto Oksanen at Nyrola Obs., Finland A. Oksanen (Nyrola Observatory), R. Henriksson and M. Tuukkanen (the Finnish Deep Sky section of Astronomical Association Ursa) report:

We observed the optical afterglow of GRB030329 reported by Peterson and Price (GCN 1985) visually about 8 hours after the burst.

M. Tuukkanen observed the OT In Pornainen, Finland with a 0.63 m Newton telescope for about one hour starting March 29, 2003 19:30 UT. He reported it as a faint starlike object seen easily with direct vision. He did not see any flickering or distinct color.

R. Henriksson was observing in Orivesi, Finland with his 0.30 m Newton telescope using 200x magnification at 20:05 UT. He reported the object stellar and faint, visible only with averted vision. His scanned sketch with notes is available on web:

http://archive.ermiksson.net/record.php?id=4112

Both observers estimated the visual magnitude as 14.3 by using the 14.2 magnitude GSC 1434:322 star North of OT as reference.

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Wide-field photograph by R. Tamura 1 hr after the burst

(vsnet-grb-info 1055, also issuse as GCN No. 2164)

GRB 030329: wide-field photograph by R. Tamura 1 hr after the burst

T. Kato (Kyoto U), R. Tamura and T. Inone (Akashi Municipal Planetarium) report:

Ryuichi Tamura (Japanese amateur astronomer; a member of Friends of the Star in the Akashi Municipal Planetarium) incidentally took wide-field photographs around the afterglow of GRB 030329 one hour after the burst. The photographs were taken at two epochs covering 12:28-12:35 UT (starting at 51 min after the burst) and 12:35-12:42 UT. No obvious optical afterglow was detected on these images. A quick look of the first image has yielded an upper limit of about 8.5 mag. Further analysis of the images is in progress.

(Click to see the full image; the bright star in the right is gamma Leo; taken with a f=16mm lens installed on SRT-101 camera, Tengu Highland, Kochi, Japan)