TITLE:   GCN GRB OBSERVATION REPORT
NUMBER:  2007
SUBJECT: GRB030328: X-ray Afterglow Observed with Chandra
DATE:    03/03/29 23:44:47 GMT
FROM:    George Ricker at MIT  <grr@space.mit.edu>

GRB030328: X-ray Afterglow Observed with Chandra

N. R. Butler, H. L. Marshall, P. G. Ford, R. K. Vanderspek, G. R.
Ricker (MIT), J. G. Jernigan (U.C. Berkeley), and D. Q. Lamb (U. Chicago)

report:

Beginning at March 29.112 (t[burst] + 15.33 hr) Chandra Low Energy
Transmission Grating Spectrometer (LETGS) observations commenced of
a field centered on the HETE WXM+SXC localizations (Villasenor et al,
GCN 1978) of GRB030328.  We report here on the first 2.6 ksec of data
downlinked from Chandra.  An X-ray source is detected at a location
consistent with that of the optical transient found by Peterson & Price
(GCN1974), and a total of 13 counts are observed in the 0.2-10 keV band in
the 0th order image.  Assuming a spectrum with photon index gamma=2 and
attenuated by a Galactic absorption column (nH=4.3 x 10^(20) cm^(-2)),
this corresponds to an average flux of ~3 x 10^(-13) ergs cm^(-2) s^(-1).

Our analyses are continuing, and more detailed results will be posted at:

http://space.mit.edu/HETE/

We thank Harvey Tananbaum for his generous allocation of Director's
Discretion Time to this observation, and the Chandra X-ray
Observatory Operations personnel for the impressive promptness with
which this observation was planned and carried out.

The preliminary results reported here may be cited.