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GCN Circular 27216

Subject
LIGO/Virgo S200224ca: no counterpart candidates in the Swift/BAT observations
Date
2020-02-26T01:35:06Z (5 years ago)
From
Amy Lien at GSFC <amy.y.lien@nasa.gov>
S. D. Barthelmy (NASA/GSFC), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC),
D. M. Palmer (LANL), T. Sakamoto (AGU),
A. P. Beardmore (U. Leicester), M. G. Bernardini (INAF-OAB),
A. A. Breeveld (MSSL-UCL), D. N. Burrows (PSU),
S. Campana (INAF-OAB), S. B. Cenko (NASA/GSFC),
G. Cusumano (INAF-IASF PA), A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA),
P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia (ASI-ASDC), S. Emery (UCL-MSSL),
P. A. Evans (U. Leicester), P. Giommi (ASI), C. Gronwall (PSU),
D. Hartmann (Clemson U.), J. A. Kennea (PSU),
N. Klingler (PSU), H. A. Krimm (NSF),
N. P. M. Kuin (UCL-MSSL), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC),
A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), J. A. Nousek (PSU),
S. R. Oates (U. of Birmingham), P. T. O'Brien (U. Leicester),
J. P. Osborne (U. Leicester), C. Pagani (U. Leicester),
K. L. Page (U.Leicester), M. J. Page (UCL-MSSL), M. Perri (ASDC),
J. L. Racusin (NASA/GSFC), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU),
M. H. Siegel (PSU), G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB), A. Tohuvavohu (U. Toronto),
E. Troja (NASA/GSFC/UMCP) report on behalf of the Swift team:

We report the search results in the BAT data within T0 +/- 100 s of the
LVC event S200224ca (LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration GCN Circ. 27184),
where T0 is the LVC trigger time (2020-02-24T22:22:34.378 UTC).

The center of the BAT field of view (FOV) at T0 is
RA = 136.122 deg,
DEC = -32.441 deg,
and the roll angle is 204.112 deg.
The BAT FOV (>10% partial coding) covers 88.38% of the integrated
LVC localization probability, and 87.02% of the galaxy convolved
probability (Evans et al. 2016). Note that the sensitivity in the BAT FOV
changes with the partial coding fraction. Please see the BAT FOV figure
in the summary page (link below) for the specific location of the LVC
region relative to the BAT FOV.

Within T0 +/- 100 s, no significant detections (signal-to-noise ratio
>~ 5 sigma) are found in the BAT raw light curves with time bins of 64 ms,
1 s, and 1.6 s. Assuming a short GRB with a typical
spectrum in the BAT energy range (i.e., a simple power-law model with a
power-law index of -1.32, Lien & Sakamoto et al. 2016), the 5-sigma upper
limit in the 1-s binned light curve corresponds to a flux upper
limit (15-350 keV) of ~ 8.56 x 10^-8 erg/s/cm^2 for the 100% coded region
(i.e., for a burst with 0 deg from BAT boresight) and ~ 1.80 x 10^-6
erg/s/cm2
for the 10% coded region (~56 deg from BAT boresight).
Assuming a luminosity of ~ 2 x 10^47 erg/s (similar to GW170817)
and an average Epeak of ~ 400 keV for short GRBs (Bhat et al. 2016),
these flux upper limits corresponds to a distance of ~ 77.68 Mpc (100%
coded)
and ~ 16.93 Mpc (10% coded).

Event data are available from T0+29.042 s to T0+45.176 s via the GUANO
system
(Tohuvavohu et al. 2020, in prep). No significant detections (above our
typical
image threshold of ~ 6.5 to 7 sigma) are found in the 15-350 keV images
created using intervals of the whole event data range.

BAT retains decreased, but significant, sensitivity to rate increases for
gamma-ray events outside of its FOV. About 11.62% of the integrated LVC
localization probability was outside of the BAT FOV but above the
Earth's limb from Swift's location, and the corresponding flux upper limits
for this region are within roughly an order of magnitude higher than those
within the FOV.

The results of the BAT analysis are available at
https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/results/BATbursts/team_web/S200224ca/web/source_public.html
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