Since 1998 BOOTES has provided follow-up observations for more than 70 GRBs; the most important results obtained so far are the detection of an OT in the GRB 000313 error box and the non-detection of optical emission simultaneous to the high-energy emission for several GRBs (both long/soft and short/hard events)

Bernas, M.

Berná Galiano, J. Á.

Castro Cerón, J. M.

Castro-Tirado, A. J.

de la Morena Carretero, B.

de Ugarte Postigo, A.

Fernández, R.

Gorosabel, J.

Hudec, R.

Jelínek, M.

Kubánek, P.

Mateo Sanguino, T. J.

Páta, P.

Soldán, J.

Soria, T.

Torres Riera, J.

Vitek, S.

English

Scientific Open-access Literature Archive and Repository

DOI 10.1393/ncc/i2005-10137-xIL NUOVO CIMENTO Vol. 28 C, N. 4-5 Luglio-Ottobre 2005Simultaneous and optical follow-up GRB observationsby BOOTES(∗)A. J. Castro-Tirado(1), M. Jel´ınek(1), T. J. Mateo Sanguino(2)A. de Ugarte Postigo(1), P. Kuba´nek(3)(7), R. Hudec(3), S. Vitek(4)P. Pa´ta(4), M. Bernas(4), J. M. Castro Cero´n(5), J. Gorosabel(1)J. A´. Berna´ Galiano(6), J. Solda´n(7), T. Soria(8), R. Ferna´ndez(8)B. de la Morena Carretero(9) and J. Torres Riera(10)(1) IAA (CSIC) - Apartado de Correos, 3.004, E-18.080 Granada, Spain(2) Univ. de Huelva (EPS La Ra´bida) - E-21.819 Palos de la Frontera (Huelva), Spain(3) Astr. Inst. (AV CR), Ondrˇejov - Fricova 298, 25165 Ondrejov, Czech Republic(4) FEL, Czech Tech. Univ. - Technicka´ 2, 166 27 Praha, Czech Republic(5) INB, Kø benhavns Universitet - Juliana Maries Vej, 30, DK-2.100 Kø benhavn, Denmark(6) DFISTS, EPS, Univ. de Alicante - Apartado de Correos, 99, E-03.080 Alicante, Spain(7) INTEGRAL Scientific Data Center - Versoix, Switzerland(8) EELM (CSIC) - E-29.750 Algarrobo Costa (Ma´laga), Spain(9) ESAt (INTA) - Carretera A-494, Km. 33, E-21.130 Mazago´n (Huelva), Spain(10) DCEyTE (INTA) - Carretera de Ajalvir, Km. 4, E-28.850Torrejo´n de Ardoz (Madrid), Spain(ricevuto il 23 Maggio 2005; pubblicato online il 22 Settembre 2005)Summary. — Since 1998 BOOTES has provided follow-up observations for morethan 70 GRBs; the most important results obtained so far are the detection of an OTin the GRB 000313 error box and the non-detection of optical emission simultaneousto the high-energy emission for several GRBs (both long/soft and short/hard events).PACS 95.55.Cs – Ground-based ultraviolet, optical and infrared telescopes.PACS 95.75.De – Photography and photometry (including microlensing tech-niques).PACS 95.75.Fg – Spectroscopy and spectrophotometry.PACS 98.70.Rz – γ-ray sources; γ-ray bursts.PACS 01.30.Cc – Conference proceedings.1. – A stereoscopic systemBOOTES, the Burst Observer and Optical Transient Exploring System, is mostlya Spanish-Czech international collaboration that works to fill the paucity of studies onrapid variable astronomical objects. It is specially aimed at the detection and study(∗) Paper presented at the “4th Workshop on Gamma-Ray Burst in the Afterglow Era”, Rome,October 18-22, 2004.c© Societa` Italiana di Fisica 715716 A. J. CASTRO-TIRADO, M. JELI´NEK, T. J. MATEO SANGUINO, ETC.Fig. 1. – The BOOTES-1B set of telescopes and cameras at INTA-CEDEA, South Spain.of the optical transients (OT) that are generated in conjunction with the elusive GRBs(Gamma Ray Bursts). First light was in 1998 [1]. It is a pioneer robotic observatory forOT follow-ups [2] and it is also part of the ground segment for INTEGRAL (see also [3,4]).BOOTES-1, the main BOOTES observatory, is located in Mazago´n (Huelva), a verydark sky area in southern Spain, and it is hosted by the INTA (Instituto Nacional deTe´cnica Aeroespacial) in its “Centro de Experimentacio´n del Arenosillo”. It has twodomes (BOOTES-1A and BOOTES-1B) that shelter three Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopesand several wide field cameras (fig. 1). Following complementing schemes, all instrumentscarry out systematic explorations of the sky each night [5, 6] responding to GRB alertsat any time by means of a RTS-2 control system under Linux [7].A second observatory (BOOTES-2) is in operation since 2002. It is located at at “LaMayora” (Ma´laga), a research centre under the auspices of the CSIC (Consejo Superior deInvestigaciones Cient´ıficas), 240 km away from each other. This allows to simultaneouslyobserve the same field of the sky from both locations. Thus, using parallax, it candiscriminate against near Earth detected sources up to a distance of 106 km. An existingradiolink allows to access remotely the images. The instrumentation is reported ontable I(1).Although it was first thought as a tool to perform rapid searches of GRB opticalcounterparts, BOOTES has also participated in the study of meteor storms. Additionally,it has accumulated an enormous database of sky images to study objects which exhibitshort-lived variations.(1) See http://laeff.inta.es/BOOTES/ for additional information.SIMULTANEOUS AND OPTICAL FOLLOW-UP GRB OBSERVATIONS BY BOOTES 717Table I. – BOOTES current instrumentation (as of 2005).Device Field of view Limiting magnitudeBOOTES-1A WF3 tele 400mm f/3.3 5◦ Rlim = 16.0 (600 s)BOOTES-1B NF4 SC200mm Øf/6.3 20′ Vlim = 16.5 (300 s)BOOTES-1B NF5 SC200mm Øf/6.3 20′ Ilim = 15.4 (300 s)BOOTES-1B WF6Spec SC300mm Øf/6.3 20′ Vlim = 13.0 (300 s)BOOTES-1A AS7 16mm f/2.8 150◦ Rlim = 10.0 (30 s)BOOTES-2 NF8 SC300mm Øf/3.3 30′ Ilim = 16.2 (300 s)BOOTES-2 WF9 50mm f/2.0 16◦ Ilim = 12.5 (300 s)BOOTES-2 AS10 16mm f/2.8 150◦ Rlim = 10.0 (30 s)2. – Scientific resultsSince 1998 BOOTES has responded to more than 60 GRB triggers with differentresults [8, 9]. The majority of the follow-ups has provided upper limits to the GRBoptical emission despite the prompt response, thus ratifying the elusiveness of thesephenomena. Here we present the most significant results.2.1. Long-duration GRBs2.1.1. Simultaneous observations. GRB 010220: it was the first time that a long/softGRB error box was imaged by a CCD camera prior to the beginning of the burst, duringthe entire burst and after it. The first image began 52 seconds before the γ-ray eventregistered on 20th February 2001 and covered the first 8 seconds of it. The second onecovered from 68 to 128 seconds after the trigger. No OT was detected in any of theseimages. This can be attributed to the high extinction (AV = 3.3 magnitudes) in thisdirection, at only 1.38◦ from the galactic plane [10]. Upper limits of R = 10 and 11.5were derived for GRB 030115 [11] and GRB 030226, respectively [12]. In the latter case,an optical afterglow was discovered few hours after the event and it was possible toconstraint the reverse shock emission [13]. Further upper limits were reported for GRB041016 [14], GRB 041219, GRB 041214 and GRB 041226 [15].2.1.2. Follow-up observations. The only positive detection so far is SN2003dh/GRB030329, that was detected ∼ 30 h after the event at the BOOTES-1B station, at V ∼ 16.4.Additional upper limits were reported for GRB 000126, GRB 040913 and GRB 041008.2.2. Short-duration GRBs2.2.1. Simultaneous observations. Excluding GRB 020531 (imaged under poor meteo-rological conditions [16]), GRB 021201 was the first case for which a short/hard GRBerror box was imaged by a CCD camera prior to the beginning of the burst, during theentire burst and after it. The limiting magnitude was R = 10 [17].2.2.2. Follow-up observations. Besides a follow-up observation to the short/hard burstGRB 000607 [18, 19], on 13th March 2000 BOOTES responded to a GCN alert andstarted exposing at the given coordinates, 4 minutes after the GRB trigger by BATSE(Burst and Transient Source Experiment). The image was in the I band, 5 minutes longand going down to 13th magnitude.718 A. J. CASTRO-TIRADO, M. JELI´NEK, T. J. MATEO SANGUINO, ETC.A 9th magnitude source, not present in the Digital Sky Survey, was found in thesaid image. After this first image, and because of the big error box given by BATSE,BOOTES started a mosaic around this field, so no other image was taken at the originalposition until 49 minutes had elapsed since the trigger. By then further imaging revealedthat the source had faded away. The results are discussed in [20].∗ ∗ ∗We thank the INTA’s “Departamento de Ciencias del Espacio y Tecnolog´ıas Electro´ni-cas” for their support through project IGE 4900506. This work is partially supported bySpain’s “Comisio´n Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnolog´ıa” grant ESP95-0389-C02-02and by Spain’s PNAyA programmes AyA 2.002-0.802 and AyA 2.004-01.515 (includingFEDER funds). The Czech contribution has been supported by the ESA Prodex Project14.527 and by the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, grantA3.003.206.REFERENCES[1] Castro-Tirado A. J., Hudec R. and Solda´n J., in The Third Hunstville Symposium onGamma-Ray Bursts, edited by Kouveliotou C. et al., AIP Conf. Proc., 384 (1996) 814.[2] Castro-Tirado A. J., Hudec R., Bernas M. et al., in The Fourth Hunstville Gamma-ray Burst Symposium, edited by Meegan C. et al., AIP Conf. Proc., 428 (1998) 874.[3] Castro-Tirado A. J., Solda´n J., Rezek T. et al., A&AS, 138 (1999) 583.[4] Hudec R., Solda´n J., Hudcova V. et al., in Blazar Monitoring towards the ThirdMillennium, edited by Raitieri C. M. et al. (Osservatorio Astronomico, Torino) 1999,p. 131.[5] Pa´ta P., Bernas M., Castro-Tirado A. J. and Hudec R., in Gamma-ray burstsin the afterglow era, edited by Costa E. et al., ESO Astrophysics Symposia XIX(Springer-Verlag, Berlin) 2001, p. 412.[6] de Ugarte Postigo A., Mateo Sanguino T. J., Castro Cero´n J. M. et al., in GRBand Afterglow Astronomy 2001, AIP Conf. Proc., 662 (2003) 553.[7] Kuba´nek P., Jel´ınek M., Nekola P. et al., in Gamma-ray Burst Symposium, AIPConf. Proc., 727 (2004) 753.[8] Castro-Tirado A. J., Bernas M., Pa´ta P. et al., in The Fifth Hunstville Gamma-rayBurst Symposium, edited by M. Kippen et al., AIP Conf. Proc., 526 (2000) 260.[9] Castro Cero´n J. M. et al., Rev. Mex. de Astron. y Astrof. (Conf. Ser.), 16 (2003) 77.[10] Castro-Tirado A. J., Castro Cero´n J. M., Mateo T. et al., GCN Circular, 957(2001) .[11] Castro-Tirado A. J., de Ugarte Postigo A., Mateo Sanguino T. et al., GCNCircular, 1826 (2003a) (1).[12] Castro-Tirado A. J., de Ugarte Postigo A., Mateo Sanguino T. et al., GCNCircular, 1887 (2003b) .[13] Klose S. et al.., AJ, 128 (2004) 1942.[14] Jel´ınek M., Castro-Tirado A. J., de Ugarte Postigo A. et al., GCN Circular,2822 (2004) .[15] Castro-Tirado A. J., Jel´ınek M., de Ugarte Postigo A. et al., GCN Circular,2961 (2005) .[16] Castro-Tirado A. J., Castro Cero´n J. M., de Ugarte Postigo A. et al., GCNCircular, 1430 (2002a) .[17] Castro-Tirado A. J., de Ugarte Postigo A., Mateo Sanguino T. et al., GCNCircular, 1720 (2002b) .[18] Masetti N., Palazzi E., Pian E. et al., GCN Circular, 720 (2000) .[19] Hurley K., Berger E., Castro-Tirado A. J. et al., ApJ, 567 (2002) 447.[20] Castro-Tirado A. J., Castro Cero´n J. M., Gorosabel J. et al., A&A, 393 (2002c)L55.

Simultaneous and optical follow-up GRB observations by BOOTES

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Simultaneous and optical follow-up GRB observations by BOOTES

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