A Large Catalog of Homogeneous Ultra-Violet/Optical GRB Afterglows: Temporal and Spectral Evolution

Abstract

We present the second Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow catalog, greatly expanding on the first Swift UVOT GRB afterglow catalog. The second catalog is constructed from a database containing over 120,000 independent UVOT observations of 538 GRBs first detected by Swift, the High Energy Transient Explorer 2 (HETE2), the INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL), the Interplanetary Network (IPN), Fermi, and Astro-rivelatore Gamma a Immagini Leggero (AGILE). The catalog covers GRBs discovered from 2005 Jan 17 to 2010 Dec 25. Using photometric information in three UV bands, three optical bands, and a `white' or open filter, the data are optimally co-added to maximize the number of detections and normalized to one band to provide a detailed light curve. The catalog provides positional, temporal, and photometric information for each burst, as well as Swift Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) and X-Ray Telescope (XRT) GRB parameters. Temporal slopes are provided for each UVOT filter. The temporal slope per filter of almost half the GRBs are fit with a single power-law, but one to three breaks are required in the remaining bursts. Morphological comparisons with the X-ray reveal that approximately 75% of the UVOT light curves are similar to one of the four morphologies identified by Evans et al. (2009). The remaining approximately 25% have a newly identified morphology. For many bursts, redshift and extinction corrected UV/optical spectral slopes are also provided at 2000, 20,000, and 200,000 seconds.

44 pages, 14 figures, to be published in Astrophysical Journal Supplemental

References in corpus (16)

• Gamma-Ray Bursts: Progress, Problems & Prospects
• The First Swift BAT Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog
• A statistical study of gamma-ray burst afterglows measured by the Swift Ultra-violet Optical Telescope
• The First Swift Ultra-Violet/Optical Telescope GRB Afterglow Catalog
• Correlations of Prompt and Afterglow Emission in Swift Long and Short Gamma Ray Bursts
• Accurate early positions for Swift GRBS: enhancing X-ray positions with UVOT astrometry
• GRB 060313: A New Paradigm for Short-Hard Bursts?
• Refined Astrometry and Positions for 179 Swift X-ray Afterglows
• GRB 090902B: afterglow observations and implications
• Swift-UVOT captures the earliest ultraviolet spectrum of a Gamma Ray Burst
• The Two-Component Afterglow of Swift GRB 050802
• The Rapidly Flaring Afterglow of the Very Bright and Energetic GRB 070125
• The measurement errors in the Swift-UVOT and XMM-OM
• The exceptionally extended flaring activity in the X-ray afterglow of GRB 050730 observed with Swift and XMM-Newton
• The dark nature of GRB 130528A and its host galaxy
• Optimal Coaddition of Imaging Data for Rapidly Fading Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows

Cited by in corpus (8)

• GRB 140102A: Insight into Prompt Spectral Evolution and Early Optical Afterglow Emission
• A search for radio afterglows from gamma-ray bursts with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
• GRB 191016A: A Long Gamma-Ray Burst Detected by TESS
• GRB 191016A: The onset of the forward shock and evidence of late energy injection
• Swift/UVOT: 18 Years of Long GRB Discoveries and Advances
• An optical-ultraviolet flare with absolute AB magnitude of -39.4 detected in GRB 220101A
• A study of gamma-ray burst afterglows as they first come into view of the Swift Ultraviolet and Optical Telescope
• GRB X-ray plateaus as evidence that the afterglow begins before the prompt gamma-ray emission