Swift Observations of GRB 180618A

S.J. LaPorte (PSU), V. D'Elia (ASDC) and M.H. Siegel (PSU) for the Swift team

1. Introduction

At 00:43:13 UT, the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) triggered and located GRB 180618A (trigger=842475) (LaPorte et al. GCN Circ. 22790). Swift slewed immediately to the burst. At the time of the trigger, the initial BAT position was 66° from the Sun (5.6 hours East) and 61° from the 24%-illuminated Moon. Table 1 contains the best reported positions from Swift, and the latest XRT position can be viewed at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_positions.

LaPorte et al. (GCN Circ. 22790) reported the discovery with UVOT of an optical afterglow. Table 2 is a summary of GCN Circulars about this GRB from observatories other than Swift.

Standard analysis products for this burst are available at https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/swift_gnd_ana.html.

2. BAT Observations and Analysis

As reported by Sakamoto et al. (GCN Circ. 22796), the BAT ground-calculated position is RA, Dec = 169.948, 73.825 deg which is RA(J2000) = 11h19m47.6s Dec(J2000) = +73°49'29.3" with an uncertainty of 1.5 arcmin, (radius, sys+stat, 90% containment). The partial coding was 70%.

The mask-weighted light curve (Figure 1) shows a short multi-peaked structure from ~ T0 to ~T+0.3, followed by some extended emission that lasts till ~T+50 s. T90 (15-350 keV) is 47.4 ± 11.1 s (estimated error including systematics).

The time-averaged spectrum from T-0.06 to T+56.33 s is best fit by a simple power-law model. The power law index of the time-averaged spectrum is 1.39 ± 0.27. The fluence in the 15-150 keV band is 6.7 ± 1.0 x 10-7 erg cm-2. This fluence is larger than that of 29% of the long GRBs in the Second BAT GRB Catalog (Sakamoto et al. 2011). The 1-s peak photon flux measured from T-0.08 s in the 15-150 keV band is 2.2 ± 0.2 ph cm-2 s-1. All the quoted errors are at the 90% confidence level.

Using a 4-ms binned light curve (Figure 1) , the lag analysis of the first two tallest pulses (from ~T0 to ~T+0.1 s) finds a lag of 0.7 ± 0.9 ms for the 100-350 keV to 25-50 keV band, and 1.5 (+1.8, -1.2) ms for the 50-100 keV to 15-25 keV band. Therefore, the lag values of these short pulses are consistent with those of short GRBs.

The results of the batgrbproduct analysis are available at https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/notices_s/842475/BA/.

3. XRT Observations and Analysis

Analysis of the initial XRT data was reported by D'Elia et al. (GCN Circ. 22793). We have analysed 25 ks of XRT data for GRB 180618A, from 83 s to 224.3 ks after the BAT trigger. The data comprise 293 s in Windowed Timing (WT) mode with the remainder in Photon Counting (PC) mode. The enhanced XRT position for this burst was given by Goad et al. (GCN Circ. 22791).

The light curve (Figure 2) can be modelled with a series of power-law decays. The initial decay index is α=0.65 (+0.20, -0.29). At T+158 s the decay steepens to an α of 1.81 ± 0.05 before breaking again at T+12.2 ks to a final decay with index α=0.1 (+0.9, -1.0).

A spectrum formed from the WT mode data can be fitted with an absorbed power-law with a photon spectral index of 1.91 ± 0.09. The best-fitting absorption column is 2.0 (+0.4, -0.3) x 1021 cm-2, in excess of the Galactic value of 4.4 x 1020 cm-2 (Willingale et al. 2013). The PC mode spectrum has a photon index of 2.25 (+0.22, -0.21) and a best-fitting absorption column of 3.0 (+0.9, -0.8) x 1021 cm-2. The counts to observed (unabsorbed) 0.3-10 keV flux conversion factor deduced from this spectrum is 3.3 x 10-11 (5.6 x 10-11) erg cm-2 count-1.

A summary of the PC-mode spectrum is thus:
Total column: 3.0 (+0.9, -0.8) x 1021 cm-2
Galactic foreground: 4.4 x 1020 cm-2
Excess significance: 5.6 σ
Photon index: 2.25 (+0.22, -0.21)

The results of the XRT team automatic analysis are available at http://www.swift.ac.uk/xrt_products/00842475.

4. UVOT Observations and Analysis

The Swift/UVOT began settled observations of the field of GRB 180618A 86 s after the BAT trigger (Siegel and LaPorte GCN Circ. 22810). We confirm the previously reported fading optical afterglow, also detected by LT (Guidorzi et al., GCN Circ. 22792) and MASTER (Tyurina et al., GCN Circ. 22797). Table 3 gives preliminary magnitudes using the UVOT photometric system (Breeveld et al. 2011, AIP Conf. Proc., 1358, 373). No correction has been made for the expected extinction in the Milky Way corresponding to a reddening of EB-V of 0.07 mag. in the direction of the GRB (Schlegel et al. 1998).

BAT light curve

Figure 1. The BAT mask-weighted light curve in the four individual and total energy bands. The units are counts s-1 illuminated-detector-1. The vertical green dash-dotted lines show the T50 interval, the vertical black dashed lines show the T90 interval, and vertical blue (orange) solid lines show the start (stop) of slews.

XRT light curve

Figure 2. The XRT light curve. Any data from a crosshatched region are not included in the fit.

RA (J2000) Dec (J2000) Error Note Reference
11h19m45.84s +73°50'13.5" 0.43" UVOT-refined Siegel and LaPorte GCN Circ. 22810
11h19m45.94s +73°50'14.3" 1.4" XRT-final UKSSDC
11h19m45.94s +73°50'14.3" 1.7" XRT-enhanced Goad et al. GCN Circ. 22791
11h19m47.6s +73°49'29.3" 1.5' BAT-refined Sakamoto et al. GCN Circ. 22796

Table 1. Positions from the Swift instruments.

Band Authors GCN Circ. Subject Observatory Notes
Optical Guidorzi et al. 22792 LT prompt observations Liverpool Telescope detection
Optical Tyurina et al. 22797 MASTER OT observation (a short GRB with
extended emission)
MASTER
Optical Zhu et al. 22804 Xinglong-2.16m optical upper limit Xinglong upper limits
Optical Mazaeva et al. 22809 TSHAO optical upper limit Zeiss-1000 upper limits
Gamma-ray Hamburg and Bissaldi 22794 Fermi GBM detection Fermi GBM Epeak=2.8±0.8 keV
T90=3.7 seconds
Fluence=2.12±0.12x10-6erg cm-2
(31st percentile for long GRBs)
Gamma-ray Svinkin et al. 22822 Konus-Wind observation of GRB 180618A
(a short GRB with extended emission)
Konus-Wind Epeak=2461 (-565,+788) keV
Duration=~0.250 seconds
Fluence=6.24(-1.13,+1.20)x10-6erg cm-2
Gamma-ray Sharma et al. 22842 AstroSat CZTI detection CZTI T90=2.1 seconds

Table 2. Summary of GCN Circulars from other observatories sorted by band and then circular number.

Filter Tstart(s) Tstop(s) Exp(s) Mag
white (fc) 86 236 147 17.46 ± 0.04
white 86 1544 390 17.95 ± 0.03
white 5680 7315 393 >21.09
v 628 1596 117 18.71 ± 0.22
v 6090 6290 196 >19.25
b 553 1175 58 18.84 ± 0.16
b 5475 7110 393 >20.39
u (fc) 298 548 246 17.50 ± 0.06
u 298 1497 313 17.62 ± 0.06
u 5270 6905 393 >19.94
w1 676 1472 97 18.59 ± 0.24
w1 5065 6700 393 >19.63
m2 1254 1621 58 >17.6
w2 604 1398 97 18.85 ± 0.28

Table 3. UVOT observations reported by Siegel and LaPorte (GCN Circ. 22810). The start and stop times of the exposures are given in seconds since the BAT trigger. The preliminary detections and 3-σ upper limits are given. No correction has been made for extinction in the Milky Way.

June 26, 2018