GCN Circular 1844
Subject
GRB 020819: Host galaxy at Radio Position
Date
2003-02-02T01:04:47Z (21 years ago)
From
Andrew Levan at U.of Leicester <anl@star.le.ac.uk>
Andrew Levan (U. Leicester/STScI), Andrew Fruchter, James Rhoads and
Ingunn Burud (STScI), Evert Rol, Isabel Salamanca, Lex Kaper (U.
Amsterdam) and Nial Tanvir (U. Hertfordshire) report for a larger
collaboration:
We have re-examined R-band images of the field of GRB 020819 taken with
the JKT on Aug 19th 2002 and with CTIO-4m on Sept 9th 2002. Coincident
with the radio position reported by Frail & Berger (GCN 1842) we find a
clearly resolved galaxy with R~19.8.
A PSF matched image subtraction reveals no evidence of fading between
19th Aug. and 9th Sept. Thus any optical transient had R>22 at the time
of the JKT observations (9 hours after burst).
If this galaxy is indeed the host of GRB 020819 then it is the brightest
GRB host galaxy yet observed (with the exception of the host of GRB
980425/SN1998bw). It may therefore be at very low redshift. Alternatively
the unusual properties of the burst may be related to an unusual host
environment.