TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 21524 SUBJECT: LIGO/Virgo G298048: Swift/BAT data search DATE: 17/08/17 21:34:36 GMT FROM: Amy Lien at GSFC/Swift S. D. Barthelmy (NASA/GSFC), A. Y. Lien (GSFC/UMBC), D. M. Palmer (LANL), T. Sakamoto (AGU), A. A. Breeveld (MSSL-UCL), A. P. Beardmore (U. Leicester), D. N. Burrows (PSU), S. Campana (INAF-OAB), S. B. Cenko (NASA/GSFC), G. Cusumano (INAF-IASF PA), A. D'Ai (INAF-IASFPA), P. D'Avanzo (INAF-OAB), V. D'Elia(ASDC), S. Emery (UCL-MSSL), P. A. Evans (U. Leicester), P. Giommi (ASI), C. Gronwall (PSU), J. A. Kennea (PSU), H. A. Krimm (CRESST/GSFC/USRA), N. P. M. Kuin (UCL-MSSL), F. E. Marshall (NASA/GSFC), A. Melandri (INAF-OAB), B. Mingo (U. Leicester), J. A. Nousek (PSU), S. R. Oates (Uni. of Warwick), P. T. O'Brien (U. Leicester), J. P. Osborne (U. Leicester), C. Pagani (U. Leicester), K. L. Page (U.Leicester), M. Perri (ASDC), J. L. Racusin (NASA/GSFC), B. Sbarufatti (INAF-OAB/PSU), M. H. Siegel (PSU), G. Tagliaferri (INAF-OAB), E. Troja (NASA/GSFC/UMCP) report on behalf of the Swift team: We report the search results in the BAT data within T0 +/- 100 s of the LVC event G298048 (LIGO/VIRGO Collaboration GCN Circ. 21513), where T0 is the LVC trigger time (2017-08-17T12:41:04.445 UTC). The center of the BAT FOV at T0 is RA = 36.075 deg, DEC = -52.287 deg, ROLL = 108.515 deg. The BAT Field of View (>10% partial coding) covers 0.0% of the integrated LVC localization probability. That is, there is no overlap between the BAT field of view and the LVC probability region at T0. Within T0 +/- 100 s, no significant detections (signal-to-noise ratio >~ 5 sigma) are found in the BAT raw light curves with time bins of 64 ms, 1 s, and 1.6 s, respectively. Assuming an on-axis (100% coded) short GRB with a typical spectrum in the BAT energy range (i.e., a simple power-law model with a power-law index of -1.32, Lien & Sakamoto et al. 2016), the 5-sigma upper limit in the 1-s binned light curve corresponds to a flux upper limit (15-350 keV) of ~ 7.82 x 10^-8 erg/s/cm^2. BAT retains decreased, but significant, sensitivity to rate increases for gamma-ray events outside of its FOV. About 0.15% of the integrated LVC localization probability was outside of the BAT FOV but above the Earth's limb from Swift's location, and the corresponding flux upper limits for this region are within roughly an order of magnitude of those within the FOV.