Astron. Astrophys. 334, 117–123 (1998) ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS BV RcIc photometry of GRB 970508 optical remnant: May-August, 1997 V.V. Sokolov1, A.I. Kopylov1, S.V. Zharikov1, M. Feroci2, L. Nicastro3, and E. Palazzi3 1 Special Astrophysical Observatory of RAS, Karachai-Cherkessia, 357147 Nizhnij Arkhyz Russia (sokolov,akop,[email protected]) 2 Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale, CNR, Via Fosso del Cavaliere, I-00131 Roma, Italy 3 Istituto Tecnologie e Studio Radiazioni Extraterrestri CNR, Via P. Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, Italy Received 2 February 1998 / Accepted 24 February 1998 Abstract. We present the results of photometric observations Thank to the fast and accurate positioning of GRBs (a few ar- of the variable optical source associated to the remnant of the cminutes) obtainable through the combined capabilities of the gamma-ray burst GRB 970508 performed at the Special As- Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor (GRBM) and Wide Field Cameras trophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science (WFCs) onboard this satellite, an X-ray and optical afterglow (SAO RAS) from May to August 1997. The observations were were observed for the very first time (Costa et al. 1997b, van carried out with the standard (Johnson-Kron-Cousins) photo- Paradijs et al., 1997). metric BV RcIc system using the 1-meter and 6-meter tele- However, as was found out later, the optical data on the first scopes. The brightness of the optical source increased from GRB afterglow in the history were obtained with different in- Rc =21.19 ± 0.25 (May 9.75 UT) to Rc =19.70 ± 0.03 struments and in different photometric conditions and refer to (May 10.77 UT), whereupon it was decaying in all the four different photometric systems and bands. The source brightness BV RcIc bands during about one month after the burst. Be- in different filters was determined at different times and besides, tween the 3rd and the 6th night after the GRB 970508 event, only a few reliable brightness determinations (not upper limits) the flux decrease of the optical source follows an exponential have been gained while the object was bright enough. In the law in all the four bands. In that period the broad-band spec- end, it led to the uncertainty in the interpretation of optical ob- trum of the object does not change and can be approximately servations (see for example Sahu et al. 1997, Galama et al. 1997 −1.1 th described by the power law Fν ∝ ν . The subsequent obser- and the Proceedings of the 4 Huntsville GRB Symposium). vations in BV RcIc bands have shown a reduction of the source But at least, one thing became clear after GRB 970228: the op- brightness decrease rate. The source flux decay after the max- tical source–agamma-ray burst remnant (GRBR) – can be imum in the Rc band is well described by a single power-law observed during rather a long period, from one to several days, − . ± . F ∝ t 1 171( 0 012) for the whole set of observations during in sufficiently bright phase, with the brightness of V<23. 86 days. In the other bands the decay seems to slow down from By the end 1997, the optical afterglow of GRBs was reliably the 31th day onwards. In particular, in the Ic band the source detected in 3 cases: GRB 970228, GRB 970508, GRB 971214. magnitude is about 23.1 from the 36th day after the GRB to the While the first and third optical transient sources (OTs) were end of the observations (August 4, 1997). not observed at SAO RAS close to their maximum brightness, for the second OT, related to GRB 970508 reported by the Bep- Key words: gamma-rays: bursts poSAX team (Costa et al. 1997b; Piro et al. 1998) essential op- tical data helping to elucidate common observational signs of optical GRBRs have been obtained at SAO with the 1-m and 6-m telescopes. The second GRB with an optical afterglow was in a 1. Introduction very favorable place in the northern sky (in the Camelopardalis ◦ Since their discovery in 1969 (Klebesadel et al. 1973) the constellation). The high declination of ∼ +79 allows us to ob- serve this object at SAO at all dates being at a zenith distance gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) phenomenon is the subject of inten- ◦ sive observational and theoretical studies. The basic problem of less than 57 . before 1997 was the lack of reliable counterparts to the sources Preliminary results of multi-color photometry of the of GRB (in quiet or transient state) in wave bands other than GRB 970508 optical remnant were reported elsewhere (Sokolov gamma-rays and, as a consequence, the total uncertainty of their et al. 1997). In this paper we report the results of BV RcIc pho- distance. The situation changed after the Gamma-Ray Burst of tometry from May to August 1997 discussing the correlation February 28, 1997, GRB 970228 (Costa et al. 1997a) detected between the features of the optical light curves and those ob- by the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX (Boella et al. 1997). served at other wavelengths. The second section deals with the search and detection of this optical source with the SAO tele- Send offprint requests to: [email protected] scopes and describes the BV RcIc photometry with the 1-m and 118 V.V. Sokolov et al.: BVRcIc photometry of GRB 970508 optical remnant: May-August, 1997 Table 1. First week observations of GRB 970508 optical remnant. vations carryed out at SAO during the first week after the GRB is reported in Table 1. The exposure times in seconds are shown night UT telescope BVRc Ic for each filters. (May) (s) (s) (s) (s) 09/10 09.75 1-m 300 Observations were carried out with filters closely matching -”- 09.85 -”- 600 the BV RcIc Johnson-Kron-Cousins system. The data were pro- 10/11 10.77 6-m 300 200 100 300 cessed using the ESO-MIDAS software. Standard data reduc- -”- 10.93 -”- 300 200 100 300 tion includes bias subtraction, flat-fielding and cosmic particle 11/12 11.76 -”- 450 300 150 450 traces removal. Photometric conditions remained stable during 12/13 12.87 -”- 450 600 150 900 two nights of May 13/14 and May 21/22. 13/14 13.88 -”- 1200 600 450 450 Four bright stars (Fig. 1) in the GRB 970508 field were used as secondary photometric standards. Magnitudes of these Table 2. Secondary photometric standards in the OT GRB 970508 stars were determined on the night of May 13/14 with good field. photometric conditions using four standard stars in the field of # α2000 δ2000 BVRc Ic PG1657+078 (Landolt, 1992). Zero-point errors are better than m 1 06:53:37.19 79:17:30.7 20.44 19.14 18.31 17.53 0.05 . Coordinates and magnitudes of secondary photometric 2 06:53:36.30 79:15:30.0 19.93 19.17 18.71 18.27 standards are given in Table 2. Our Rc magnitudes of stars 2, 3 06:53:39.23 79:15:21.1 17.94 17.40 17.06 16.71 3, 4 are 0.20 ± 0.01 higher than the magnitudes measured by 4 06:53:48.50 79:16:32.7 21.93 20.43 19.49 18.53 Schaefer et al. (1997). The application of the analogous pho- tometric procedure in BV RcIc Johnson-Kron-Cousins system, 6-m telescopes. The third section is dedicated to the results of used at SAO RAS, is given in details in the paper by Kurt et al. CCD photometry in the phase of the source brightness maxi- (1998). mum and to the following brightness fading in different filters up to the 87th day after the burst. The fourth section is dedi- 3. The brightness maximum phase and following source cated to the discussion of the results and to the comparison of fading the optical light curves with those in X-ray and radio. We define as source brightness maximum phase the period when the optical object brightness increased to the maximum (or close 2. GRB 970508 optical counterpart search to the maximum) and then began to drop down to V ≈ 21.5 and The alert of a new GRB detection by BeppoSAX reached SAO Rc ≈ 21.1. It corresponds approximately to the first week of only 3.5 hours after the high energy event (May 8.904 UT). observations after the GRB when the optical source could still Due to morning twilight, follow-up observations could start at be observed with many telescopes - big and medium ones. The the 1-m telescope on May 9.74 UT. The 50 WFC error box was results of the observations performed during these nights at SAO completely covered with the CCD mosaic of 29 images in Rc together with those from Palomar and Loiano are shown in Fig. band with 300 and 600 sec exposure times. The 1-m (Zeiss- 2. Many more observations other than those from Palomar and 1000) telescope is equipped with a CCD photometer ISD015A, Loiano were performed, but the different photometric systems 520 × 580 pixels corresponding to the field of view 2.00 × 3.06. used and relatively smaller accuracy of the measurements do The images from the 1-m telescope were compared to the cor- not allow a better evaluation of the OT behavior. responding fields of the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS). No new Johnson-Kron-Cousins magnitudes in the BV RcIc bands bright object was found up to the DSS limit for this field. with the associated errors for GRB 970508 optical counterpart On the next night, May 10/11, a refined WFC error circle po- are given in Table 3.