//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29305 SUBJECT: ZTF Discovery of ZTF21aaeyldq (AT2021any): a Hostless, Young, and Rapidly Fading Transient DATE: 21/01/16 21:45:39 GMT FROM: Daniel Perley at Liverpool JMU A. Y. Q. Ho (UC Berkeley), D. A. Perley (LJMU), Y. Yao (Caltech), and I. Andreoni (Caltech) report on behalf of the Zwicky Transient Facility collaboration: The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; ATel #11266) reports the discovery last night of ZTF21aaeyldq (AT2021any), a rapidly fading optical transient located at: 08:15:15.34 -05:52:01.2 (J2000) 123.813909 -5.867007 (J2000) and detected as part of the high-cadence partnership survey by a filter designed to find fast transients (Ho et al. 2020, ApJ, 905, 2). The source was discovered on UT 2021-01-16T06:59:45.6 at r=17.9 mag, only 22 minutes after the last non-detection (limiting mag r~20.28). Two additional r-band observations over the next 3.3 hours revealed rapid fading by 2 magnitudes. No counterpart is visible in deep Legacy Survey pre-imaging (>24 mag; Dey et al. 2019, ApJ, 157, 5). The color of the transient is moderately red (g-r~0.3 mag). While the source is close to the Galactic plane (+16 deg), extinction along the line of sight is low (E(g-r)~0.07 mag; Schlafly et al. 2011, ApJ, 737, 2). We urge additional multi-band photometry to establish the rate of fading and color of this transient. ZTF is a project led by PI S. R. Kulkarni at Caltech (see ATEL #11266), and includes IPAC; WIS, Israel; OKC, Sweden; JSI/UMd, USA; UW,USA; DESY, Germany; NRC, Taiwan; UW Milwaukee, USA and LANL USA. ZTF acknowledges the generous support of the NSF under AST MSIP Grant No 1440341. Alert distribution service provided by DIRAC@UW. Alert filtering is done with Kowalski (Duev et al. 2019), the GROWTH marshal system (supported by NSF PIRE grant 1545949), and by Fritz (van der Walt et al. 2019, Duev et al. 2019, Kasliwal et al. 2019). DisclaimerNone //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29307 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: GTC Redshift and GRB afterglow nature confirmation DATE: 21/01/17 02:18:08 GMT FROM: Alexander Kann at IAA-CSIC A. de Ugarte Postigo (HETH/IAA-CSIC, DARK/NBI), D. A. Kann (HETH/IAA-CSIC), D. A. Perley (LJMU), C. C. Thoene (HETH), M. Blazek, J. F. Agui Fernandez (both HETH/IAA-CSIC), and R. Scarpa (GTC) report: We observed the fast-fading hostless transient ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN #29305) with OSIRIS at the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain), starting at 2021-01-16 23:35:54.359 UT (16.60 hours after the first optical detection). The source is clearly detected. We obtained a 60 s r'-band finder image and 4 x 900 s spectroscopy with the R1000B grism. For the image starting at 2021-01-16 23:27:09.671 (0.68604 days after the first optical detection), we measure r' = 21.64 +/- 0.03 (AB mag) vs. a nearby SDSS star. The spectrum shows a clear continuum over the full spectral range with many strong absorption lines. We identify these lines as Ly-alpha, SII, OI, SiII, SiIV, CII, CIV, FeII, AlII, and AlIII, at a mean redshift of z = 2.514. We identify this as the redshift of the transient. Coupled with the rapid decay, the moderately red color (Ho et al., GCN #29305) and the lack of any broad spectral features, we also identify this transient as a GRB afterglow for which no high-energy trigger has been reported yet. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29308 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: observations with the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope DATE: 21/01/17 10:13:28 GMT FROM: Amit Kumar at ARIES, India Amit Kumar (ARIES), Shashi B. Pandey (ARIES), Rahul Gupta (ARIES), Dimple (ARIES), Ankur Ghosh (ARIES), Amar Aryan (ARIES), Brajesh Kumar (ARIES), and Kuntal Misra (ARIES) report: We observed the ZTF discovered fast-fading hostless transient ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN 29305) using the 4Kx4K CCD Imager (Pandey et al. 2018, 2018BSRSL..87...42P) mounted at the axial port of the 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope of ARIES Nainital. The transient has been identified as a GRB afterglow at z = 2.514 by Postigo et al. GCN 29307. The observations were started on 2021-01-16 at 22:15:12.980 UT (~15.258 hours after the detection). We observed two images with an exposure time of 300 seconds each in Bessel R and I bands. At the position reported by Ho et al., GCN 29305, we detect an uncatalogued source in both R and I bands. The observed R-band magnitude is as follows: Date UT start T-T0 (hours) Exp. Filter OT (mag) Err ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2021-01-16 22:15:12.980 15.258 1*300 R 21.04 0.06 The quoted magnitude is calibrated with the nearby USNO-B1 stars and not corrected for the Galactic and Host extinction in the direction of the burst. 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) is a recently commissioned facility in the Northern Himalayan region of India (long:79 41 04E, lat:29 21 40N, alt:2540m) owned and operated by the Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital (https://www.aries.res.in). Authors of this GCN circular thankfully acknowledge consistent support from the technical staff members to run and maintain the 3.6m DOT. This circular may be cited. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29309 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: Lowell Discovery Telescope observations DATE: 21/01/17 12:24:40 GMT FROM: Tomas Ahumada at U. of Maryland Tomas Ahumada (UMD), John Della Costa(SDSU), Brad Cenko (NASA GSFC), and Robert Quimby (SDSU): We imaged the position of ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN 29305), a ZTF discovered fast-fading transient with the Large Monolithic Imager (LMI) mounted at the 4.3m Lowell Discovery Telescope, starting at 2021-01-17 07:59:33 UT. We acquired three 180 sec exposures in the i-band and reduced them following standard procedures. Our image shows a clear source at the position reported by Ho et al. We calibrated the flux against SDSS sources in the field and derived a magnitude of 22.1 +- 0.2 mag. The magnitude we report is not extinction corrected. We thank the LDT staff, particularly Stephen Levine and Amanda Bosh for their assistance. -- Tomas Ahumada (he/him) Ph.D. Student Department of Astronomy University of Maryland, College Park B.Sc. Astronomy, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29310 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: NOT optical observations DATE: 21/01/17 13:37:47 GMT FROM: Dong Xu at NAOC/CAS Z.P. Zhu (NAOC, HUST), J. P. U. Fynbo (DAWN/NBI), D. A. Perley (LJMU), S.Y. Fu, D. Xu (NAOC) report on behalf of a larger collaboration: We observed the field of ZTF21aaeyldq/AT2021any (Ho et al., GCN 29305) using the 2.56-m Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) equipped with the ALFOSC camera. We did photometry in the Sloan g-/r-/i- filters, and the source, presumably an orphan GRB afterglow (e.g., A. de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN 29307), is clearly detected in each of our images. Preliminary photometry of the source is as follows: T_start(UT) Tmid-T0(day) Exptime(s) Filter Mag MagErr 2021-01-17T02:18:24 0.812 5x300 sdss-g 22.28 0.05 2021-01-17T02:45:53 0.831 5x300 sdss-r 21.86 0.04 2021-01-17T03:13:26 0.850 5x300 sdss-i 21.65 0.03 T0 is 06:59:45.6 UT on 2021-01-16, first ZTF detection of ZTF21aaeyldq, and calibrated with nearby Pan-STARRS stars. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29312 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: 2.2m CAHA BVRI optical observations DATE: 21/01/17 17:54:36 GMT FROM: Youdong HU at IAA-CSIC Y.-D. Hu, E. Fernandez-Garcia, A.J. Castro-Tirado, M.D. Caballero-Garcia, M.A. Castro-Tirado (IAA-CSIC), R.P. Hedrosa, I. Hermelo, I. Vico (CAHA) on behalf of a larger collaboration, report: Following the detection of ZTF21aaeyldq (AT2021any) by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; Ho et al., GCNC 29305), we triggered the 2.2m CAHA telescope in Almeria (Spain) equipped with CAFOS. BVRI images were gathered starting on Jan 17, 00:02 UT (17.04 hours after first optical detection). Second epoch BVRI images were taken starting at 04:08 UT. The optical counterpart is clearly detected at the ZTF position (Ho et al., GCNC 29305, de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN 29307, Kumar et al., GCNC 29308, Ahumada et al., GCNC 29309 and Zhu et al., GCNC 29310). We measure a first epoch R-band magnitude (non-extinction corrected) of R = 21.27+-0.13 mag at 00:15 UT, calibrated with the nearby stars present in the USNO-B1.0 catalog. We thank the staff at CAHA observatory for their excellent support. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29313 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq (AT2021any): Detection of X-ray Emission with Swift/XRT DATE: 21/01/17 18:10:08 GMT FROM: Anna Ho at UC Berkeley A. Y. Q. Ho (UC Berkeley) reports on behalf of the Zwicky Transient Facility collaboration: We obtained a target-of-opportunity observation of ZTF21aaeyldq/AT2021any (Ho et al., GCN 29305) with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory starting at UT 2021-01-17 (02h29), which is 0.81d after the first optical detection. We detected X-ray emission at the transient position with a count rate 0.0067 ct/s. Assuming a neutral hydrogen column density n_H = 8.12E20/cm2 (Willingale et al. 2013) and a power-law spectrum with photon index 2, the unabsorbed flux is 2.9E-13 erg/cm^2/s. At z=2.514 (A. de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN 29307) the luminosity is 1.5E46 erg/s, typical of GRB afterglows at this epoch. Further monitoring is planned, and we thank the Swift team for rapidly scheduling and executing our observations. -- Anna Ho //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29316 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: KPED observations DATE: 21/01/18 04:02:03 GMT FROM: Tomas Ahumada at U. of Maryland Michael Coughlin (UMN) and Tomas Ahumada (UMD): We imaged the position of the fast fading ZTF source ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN 29305), with the the Kitt Peak Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) demonstrator (KPED) mounted at the 2.1m Kitt Peak Telescope, starting at 2021-01-17 06:59:49 UT. We acquired thirty 10 sec exposures in the g- and r-bands, stacked them, and reduced them following standard procedures. After calibrating the flux against PS1 sources in the field, we do not see the source reported by Ho et al. down to a limit of g > 20.1 mag and r > 19.9. -- Tomas Ahumada (he/him) Ph.D. Student Department of Astronomy University of Maryland, College Park B.Sc. Astronomy, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29321 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq CAHA 2.2m detection and power-law decay DATE: 21/01/18 18:06:36 GMT FROM: Alexander Kann at IAA-CSIC D. A. Kann (HETH/IAA-CSIC), A. de Ugarte Postigo (HETH/IAA-CSIC, DARK/NBI), C. C. Thoene (HETH), M. Blazek, J. F. Agui Fernandez (both HETH/IAA-CSIC), and J. I. Vico Linares (CAHA) report: We observed the position of the GRB-less afterglow ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN #29305; de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN #29307) with CAFOS at the 2.2m telescope at Calar Alto, Almeria, Spain, in the Rc band. We obtained 10 x 360 s exposures, centered at 1.74430 days after the transient discovery, under fair conditions but mediocre seeing. The afterglow (Kumar et al., GCNs #29308; Ahumada et al., GCN #29309; Zhu et al., GCN #29310; Hu et al., GCN #29312) is clearly detected. We measure Rc = 22.89 +/- 0.12 mag. (AB mag, vs. the same SDSS star as in our GTC observation, GCN #29307 converted to Rc following the Lupton transformations, then transformed back to AB mag). We take data from Ho et al., GCN #29305; de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN #29307; and Zhu et al., GCN #29310 (all in r'), and here assume a trigger time 22 minutes before the discovery (at the last non-detection). We find this data is fit well with a single power-law, a straight decay slope alpha ~ 0.91 +/- 0.02. The magnitude we report now lies slightly (0.3 mag) below the extrapolation of the afterglow decay. Further observations are needed to determine whether this represents a jet break. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29327 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: LBT near-infrared observations DATE: 21/01/19 13:46:36 GMT FROM: Andrea Rossi at INAF A. Rossi, E. Palazzi (INAF-OAS) reports on behalf of the GRAWITA collaboration: We observed the field of ZTF21aaeyldq (Ho et al., GCN 29305) simultaneously the J and H bands with the LUCI near-infrared imager and spectrograph mounted on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT, Mt Graham, AZ, USA). Observations were obtained on 2021-01-17 at the UT 06:35:00 (midtime), i.e. ~1 day after the first ZTF detection, for a total of 15 min of on-source exposure time in each band under not very good sky conditions (seeing=1.4"). We detect the transient (de Ugarte-Postigo GCN#29307, Kumar et al., GCNs #29308; Ahumada et al., GCN #29309; Zhu et al., GCN #29310; Hu et al., GCN #29312, Kann et al., GCN #29321) in both J and H-band images, and we measure the following AB magnitudes: J=21.62+-0.20 H=21.36+-0.24 calibrated against 2MASS field stars. We acknowledge the excellent support from the LBTO and LBT-INAF staff, particularly A. Cardwell and D. Paris, in obtaining these observations. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29330 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: GROND observations DATE: 21/01/19 16:38:42 GMT FROM: Ana Nicuesa at TLS Tautenburg A. Nicuesa Guelbenzu (TLS Tautenburg), A. Rau (MPE Garching), and S. Klose (TLS Tautenburg) report: We observed the field of ZTF21aaeyldq/AT2021any (Ho et al., GCN 29305) with GROND mounted at the 2.2m MPG telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory (Chile). Observations were performed during three epochs. The data were calibrated against SDSS stars in the field. In the g' band we measure the following AB magnitudes: dt/days mag 1.82415 23.39 +/- 0.11 2.02104 23.47 +/- 0.06 2.87115 23.84 +/- 0.09. Following Kann et al. (GCN 29321), here we assumed a GRB trigger time 22 minutes before the discovery image (Ho et al., GCN 29305), i.e., at JD 2459230.77622. Based on these three epochs, we measure a decay slope of 0.94 +/- 0.05, in agreement with Kann et al. (GCN 29321). There is no evidence for an underlying host galaxy. The transient was not detected in the NIR bands. We thank Sam Kim (PUC) for performing the observations and all people, in particular P. Eigenthaler, R. Lechaume, A. Hempel, M. Hempel, T. Schweyer, A. González, involved in bringing GROND back online after its shutdown due to the Covid 19 pandemia in early 2020. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29344 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: GROND and CAHA jet break confirmation DATE: 21/01/22 17:37:47 GMT FROM: Alexander Kann at IAA-CSIC D. A. Kann (HETH/IAA-CSIC), A. Nicuesa Guelbenzu (TLS Tautenburg), A. de Ugarte Postigo (HETH/IAA-CSIC, DARK/NBI), C. C. Thoene (HETH), M. Blazek, J. F. Agui Fernandez (both HETH/IAA-CSIC), A. Rau (MPE Garching), S. Klose (TLS Tautenburg), and J. I. Vico Linares (CAHA) report: We obtained further observations of the GRB-less afterglow ZTF21aaeyldq/AT2021any (Ho et al., GCN #29305; de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN #29307) with CAFOS at the 2.2m telescope at Calar Alto, Almeria, Spain, in the Rc band at 2.8 days post-discovery, and with GROND mounted at the 2.2m MPG telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory (Chile) at 3.9 days after the trigger. The afterglow is clearly detected in each stacked image. Further to the observations and analysis described in Kann et al. (GCN #29321, with data from Ho et al., GCN #29305; de Ugarte Postigo et al., GCN #29307; and Zhu et al., GCN #29310) and Nicuesa Guelbenzu et al. (GCN #29330), we fit the combined data set, also leaving the host-galaxy magnitudes free, as the GROND data shows a characteristic flattening. We find that a single power-law fit does not describe the data well (chi^2/d.o.f. = 3.7), overestimating the CAHA data and not fitting the curvature seen in the GROND data. However, a broken power-law fit yields a significantly improved result (chi^2/d.o.f. = 0.12) with fit parameters alpha_1 = 0.95 +/- 0.03, alpha_2 = 2.30 +/- 0.76 and t_b = 0.82 +/- 0.08 days. This fit may be improved or modified with further data/observations, but the break signature is clear. It therefore confirms the initial suggestion of Kann et al. (GCN #29321). This is a typical feature in GRB afterglows and a further indicator that the nature of this transient is a GRB afterglow. Ho et al., GCN #29305, report the first detection at 2021-01-16T06:59:45.6, and a deep non-detection 22 minutes earlier. Antia et al., GCN #29340, and Nadella et al., GCN #29342, report the detection of a bright GRB 210116A with AstroSat LAXPC and CZTI at ~05:53 UR on the same day, about 44 minutes before the ZTF non-detection. Judging from typical GRB afterglow behavior, this makes it unlikely that the two events are associated with each other but does not rule it out. An IPN localization of GRB 210116A could confirm or rule out the association. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 29364 SUBJECT: ZTF21aaeyldq: Observations with the 3.6m DOT DATE: 21/01/27 11:42:29 GMT FROM: Dimple Panchal at ARIES, India Ankur Ghosh (ARIES), Dimple (ARIES), Amit Kumar (ARIES), Rahul Gupta (ARIES), Kuntal Misra (ARIES) and Shashi B. Pandey (ARIES) report: We obtained further observations of the ZTF21aaeyldq/AT2021any (Ho et al. GCN #29305, de Ugarte Postigo et al. GCN #29307, Kumar et al. #GCN 29308) with 4K x 4K CCD Imager mounted on 3.6m Devasthal Optical Telescope (DOT) at Devasthal observatory of ARIES, India, in r-band at 9.41 days after discovery. We acquired a consecutive set of 12 images with an exposure time of 300 seconds each. We do not detect any optical counterpart upto a magnitude limit of 23.98 in the stacked image. The limit do agree with the decay index reported by Kann et al. GCN #29344.