J/ApJ/681/1464 X-ray sources near soft gamma repeater in M31 (Ofek+, 2008)
GRB 070201: a possible soft gamma-ray repeater in M31.
Ofek E.O., Muno M., Quimby R., Kulkarni S.R., Stiele H., Pietsch W.,
Nakar E., Gal-Yam A., Rau A., Cameron P.B., Cenko S.B., Kasliwal M.M.,
Fox D.B., Chandra P., Kong A.K.H., Barnard R.
<Astrophys. J., 681, 1464-1469 (2008)>
=2008ApJ...681.1464O 2008ApJ...681.1464O (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: X-ray sources ; Gamma rays ; Galaxies, nearby
Keywords: galaxies: individual (M31) - gamma rays: bursts - pulsars: general -
stars: neutron - X-rays: individual (GRB 070201)
Abstract:
GRB 070201 was a bright, short-duration, hard-spectrum gamma-ray burst
detected by the Interplanetary Network. Its error quadrilateral, which
has an area of 0.124deg2, intersects some prominent spiral arms of
the nearby M31 (Andromeda) galaxy. Given the properties of this GRB,
along with the fact that LIGO data argue against a compact binary
merger origin in M31, it is an excellent candidate to have been an
extragalactic soft gamma-ray repeater (SGR) giant flare, with an
energy of 1.4x1045ergs. However, we cannot rule out the possibility
that it was a short-duration GRB in the background. Analysis of
ROTSE-IIIb visible-light observations of M31, taken 10.6hr after the
burst and covering 42% of the GRB error region, does not reveal any
optical transient down to a limiting magnitude of 17.1. We inspected
archival and proprietary XMM-Newton X-ray observations of the
intersection of the GRB error region and M31, obtained about 4 weeks
prior to the outburst, in order to look for periodic variable X-ray
sources. No SGR or anomalous X-ray pulsar (AXP) candidates (periods in
the range 1-20s) were detected. We discuss the possibility of
detecting extragalactic SGRs/AXPs by identifying their periodic X-ray
light curves. Our simulations suggest that the probability of
detecting the periodic X-ray signal of one of the known Galactic
SGRs/AXPs, if placed in M31, is about 10% using a 50ks XMM-Newton
exposure, increasing to 50% for a 2Ms observation.
Description:
Visible-light images of the Andromeda galaxy were obtained, between
2005 July and 2006 June, by the 0.45m ROTSE-IIIb telescope as part of
the Texas Supernova Search. Routine unfiltered images covering the GRB
error quadrilateral south of DEC=+42:08:57 (J2000) were taken on UTC
2007 February 2.0821, 10.6hr after the GRB trigger. The intersection
region of the error quadrilateral of GRB 070201 with M31 has been
observed by several facilities, with archival data available,
including ROSAT, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), and
XMM-Newton.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table2.dat 67 149 X-ray sources searched for periodicty
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See also:
B/xmm : XMM-Newton Observation Log (XMM-Newton Science Operation Center, 2009)
J/ApJS/173/643 : GALEX UV photometry of M31 Globular Clusters (Rey+, 2007)
J/A+A/473/347 : BeppoSAX complete catalogue of GRBs (Vetere+, 2007)
J/A+A/434/483 : An XMM-Newton survey of M 31 (Pietsch+, 2005)
J/A+A/373/63 : M31 second ROSAT PSPC survey (Supper+, 2001)
J/A+AS/114/215 : New SNR candidates in M31 (Magnier+, 1995)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 15 A15 --- [OMQ2008] Coordinate designation name (HHMMSS.s+DDMMSS)
17- 25 F9.5 deg RAdeg Right ascension in decimal degrees (J2000)
27- 35 F9.5 deg DEdeg Declination in decimal degrees (J2000)
37- 42 F6.1 arcsec Aper Aperture radius (1)
45- 53 I9 ct Cts Source counts within aperture
55- 67 A13 --- ObsID XMM observation ID
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Note (1): In which source counts were extracted.
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Nomenclature note:
Sources are <[OMQ2008] JHHMMSS.s+DDMMSS> in Simbad.
History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 03-Nov-2010