TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 7028 SUBJECT: GRB 071031: Swift/UVOT detection of afterglow DATE: 07/10/31 18:10:56 GMT FROM: Alice Breeveld at MSSL-UCL A. A. Breeveld (MSSL/UCL) and M. Stroh (PSU) report on behalf of the Swift-UVOT team: The Swift/UVOT observed the burst GRB 071031 (Stroh et al. GCN Circ. 7020) starting with the finding chart exposure in white, 114 seconds after the BAT trigger. The afterglow is detected at the UVOT position given in Stroh et al. (GCN Circ. 7020) in white, v and b until at least 7000s after the trigger. It is barely detected in u and not at all in the UV filters; this is consistent with the redshift of z=2.692 found by Ledoux et al. (GCN Circ. 7023). The brightness apparently increases for the first few hundred seconds and then fades with an estimated temporal slope in the v filter of alpha = 0.56. The initial UVOT magnitudes and upper limits from single exposures or co-added exposures are as follows: Filter Tstart(s) Tstop(s) Exp(s) Mag white 114 213 99.8 19.88 ± 0.14 715 724 9.8 19.3 ± 0.3 867 966 99.8 19.41 ± 0.1 6778 6977 199.8 20.67 ± 0.18 v 220 619 399.8 19.08 ± 0.15 973 1219 246.2 18.5 ± 0.13 11517 11816 299.8 19.93 ± 0.32 b 700 709 9.8 >18.77 (3 sigma UL) 6573 6772 199.8 20.25 ± 0.23 u 675 847 38.9 19.38 ± 0.38 4933 6567 393.3 >20.82 (3 sigma UL) uvw1 651 16990 1317.7 >21.41 (3 sigma UL) uvm2 626 12782 1089.4 >21.23 (3 sigma UL) uvw2 730 11206 1118.4 >21.46 (3 sigma UL) The values quoted above are not corrected for the expected Galactic extinction corresponding to a reddening of E_{B-V} = 0.012 mag in the direction of the burst (Schlegel et al. 1998).