TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 7176 SUBJECT: XRB 080109/SN 2008D: Early decline in brightness and change in colors DATE: 08/01/13 10:41:38 GMT FROM: Weidong Li at UC Berkeley KAIT/LOSS Weidong Li, Ryan Chornock, Ryan J. Foley, Alexei V. Filippenko, Maryam Modjaz, Dovi Poznanski, and Joshua S. Bloom (UC Berkeley) report: We analyzed the Swift/UVOT images of XRB 080109/SN 2008D in the U, B, and V filters taken on Jan 11 and 12 UT. We constructed template images for the field from follow-up data taken for SN 2007uy, and attempted image subtraction to remove the heavy galaxy contamination at the site of SN 2008D. We were able to obtain clean subtracted images as demonstrated at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~bait/sn2008d.uvot-sub.gif Using the calibration and photometry recipe of the UVOT U, B, V filters as described by Li et al. (2006, PASP 118, 37), we obtained the following photometry for SN 2008D. We used t_0 as determined by Modjaz et al. (GCN 7175). UT date t(days) Total exp. time Mag and err Jan 11.569 2.0047 2771.32s U = 18.65 +/- 0.04 Jan 11.591 2.0265 2579.13s B = 19.05 +/- 0.04 Jan 11.585 2.0203 2349.89s V = 18.38 +/- 0.05 Jan 12.408 2.9434 730.82s U = 19.02 +/- 0.07 Jan 12.409 2.8443 668.02s B = 19.34 +/- 0.07 Jan 12.445 2.8802 605.26s V = 18.56 +/- 0.08 The SN is seen to decline in the U (by 0.37 mag), B (by 0.29 mag), and V (by 0.18 mag) filters between t = 2.0-2.9 d after the XRB. As the SN declined faster in U than in V, it became progressively redder during this period. Possible explanations for the decline in the brightness at such early times for SN 2008D in the context of a SN Ib/c include the following. (a) The SN had a bright initial optical flash from shock breakout, and is now declining due to adiabatic expansion, similar to what was observed for SN 1999ex (Stritzinger et al. 2002, AJ 124, 2100). If this is the case, the SN will brighten again when the energy input from radioactive decay starts becoming visible. (b) The object is still dominated by the afterglow emission from the XRB, similar to SN 2003dh/GRB 030329. However, spectroscopy by Malesani et al. (GCN 7169), Blondin et al. and Valenti et al. (CBET 1205) indicate rather strong SN features with no prominent power-law continuum. (c) The SN has a similar behavior to the peculiar SN 2005bf (Folatelli et al. 2006, ApJ 641, 1039), with two broad peaks in the light curves. However, the first peak of SN 2005bf was reached more than 20 d after its discovery, and SN 2008D may have a very early and sharp first peak at t < 2 d. [GCN OPS NOTE(14jan08): Per author's request, the Malesani reference was added to the "(b)" paragraph.]